Welcome to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. My name is Tagore Subramaniam. I’ll be sitting in for Matt today, we have a great show today we have Chris Cannon from the Los Angeles Port Authority. Welcome to the show, Chris.

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

So Chris, you are the Director of Environmental Management at the Port of Los Angeles. What does that mean?

It just means that I have a whole group of people that I work with to help manage all the environmental issues we have with the port, we have investigation of environmental site assessments under the sequel world, we have site restoration, we’ve got a lot of, you know, cleanup activities that we have to do, the port is over 100 years old.

And so there’s always little things that we have to clean up, we got a water quality team that makes sure that we’re meeting all the state and federal requirements for water quality. And then of course, we have an air quality team that works with the port and all of our tenants to implement clean air programs. I’m involved with all of it.

Sounds like you have a full plate. A lot of our listeners may not appreciate the scale of the Port of Los Angeles and really its role in the global economy. Can you speak to that and give help give some perspective on the scope, size and influence of the port?

Sure, the port is over 100, it’s actually 114 years old. We’re the number one container port in the Western Hemisphere. We have 7500 acres of land and water and 43 miles of waterfront are our cargo touches every one of the 435 congressional districts in the United States were either directly or indirectly responsible for about one in nine jobs in the region, which works out to be about a million jobs.

In the last fiscal year, we moved just under 11 million T us as 20 foot equivalent units of cargo. So a lot of activity here at this port, and we’re proud to be a part of it is a million jobs that really is, you know, massive when you when you think about it in terms of the scale of employers. Is there something geographically about Los Angeles that makes it such an attractive destination for a shipping port?

Well, it’s, it’s, it’s a great location, one of the reasons that the Port of Los Angeles is really been as successful as it has been is that we have an extraordinary amount of infrastructure here to support the movement of cargo. So we we have up to 100 trains moving in and out of the area, we’ve got an extensive highway network, we’re able to move cargo very quickly from from ships inland.

And then of course, we’re, you know, a gateway to the Pacific, because of the fact that you know, a lot of the cargo, a lot of the manufacturing that recurs overseas is in Asia. And so we’re kind of a gateway. And we believe that, you know, shipping through the Port of Los Angeles is the fastest and most efficient way to get cargo into the United States.

And so we with that infrastructure and and as I said rail and network and, and highway network, extraordinary amount of warehouses, we think that were the most efficient way to move cargo.

Now, are the containers coming into the Port of Los Angeles, mostly going and staying within the United States? Or does the port operate primarily as a as a hub?

To some extent, oh, when we when when cargo arrives at the Port of Los Angeles, it primarily is unloaded and move inland. It either is in the local and the regional, you know, Los Angeles Basin, which has 15 plus million people living here or onward into central areas of the United States through that, as I said, that rail and highway network that I referred to. So it it is it is it is taken off of ships and transferred and moved inland.

Interesting. Now, are there any pieces of cargo that make up a disproportionate amount of the imports and exports just to kind of get a sense of really what’s going in and coming out of the port?

Electronics, automobile parts, I think those are probably the biggest things that we move in and out or in I should say into the port. Paper is an export recyclable goods and so forth are moved out. But I think electronics and automobile parts and, and so forth are probably our our biggest thing that we move in, I guess clothing, footwear, apparel.

It’s not surprising that something operating at that scale would require a lot of energy. And you know, with that, obviously comes questions of environmental ramifications, can you speak to some of the efforts taken to reduce the environmental impact of the port?

Sure, I mean, we we are, we came to the conclusion, almost 20 years ago that the only way for the port to grow is to, is to grow green. And we have to be respective of, of the impact of the port on, you know, adjacent communities and really the region and beyond. So, we we have really tried to focus on environmental programs, we back in 2006, approved along with the Port of Long Beach, which is our sister port next door.

A groundbreaking clean air action plan, something that had never been done before. We identified programs to reduce emissions from the major sources of pollution at the port, the trucks, the trains, the ships, cargo handling equipment, and the harbor craft. And we’ve done spent over $400 million over the last several years since that time, on environmental programs and, and to reduce emissions from those source categories.

And we continue to do it, we’ve had great success, we’ve reduced diesel particulate matter emissions by 87%, NOx, oxides of nitrogen by over 60%, actually 62% to be exact. And as oxides of sulfur 98% reduction in emissions. But we we realize that we have, we can’t rest on our laurels. We have to keep going. We have to do more.

We face after COVID, probably the biggest crisis facing the world today is climate change. And we want to do our part to help, you know, be leaders in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. And so we’ve set new targets for that.

What, what are those new targets?

Well, we’ve identified 00 emissions, we have to reduce our reliance on combustion based engine technologies to reduce the carbon intensity of our fuels. And to do that we’ve set zero mission goals for ourselves, we’ve set 2030 as a goal for zero missions for cargo handling equipment in our terminals, and 2035 as a goal for zero missions for trucks, drayage trucks servicing our terminals. And so those are two big goals.

They’re right around the corner, it seems like it’s a long time from now. But really, it’s not, especially when you look at the planning horizons of terminal operators and trucking companies, they’ve got to think ahead for their equipment, purchases, and so forth. And so they’re already starting to think about what they’re going to do to move towards, towards zero emissions, and we have to do it.

We have no choice, are the crisis we faced with climate change is is very serious, and requires imminent action, we want to be a part of it. So with respect to the machinery used to take cargo off of the ships that are coming in, what are the ways that you can get that machinery down to zero emissions?

Well, there really are, you know, the technology to move towards your missions, first of all, is, is still emerging. So, you know, we’re we’re actually learning more and more about different technologies and different techniques that can be used to move towards their own missions. But right now, the two primary areas that we see for the movement towards zero emissions is battery electric, you know, plugin, like automobiles, you know, a battery electric technology.

And then, of course, hydrogen fuel cells, which we also see in passenger vehicles and some small trucks. And so those are the two areas that we see. And we’re working with the manufacturers and also the operators of the equipment both at the terminals and the trucking companies to really test and deploy early versions of battery electric heavy duty equipment, heavy duty trucks, as well as fuels cell hydrogen fuel cell versions of, of terminal equipment and heavy duty trucks.

And so those are the things that we’re seeing I think, you know, it’s gonna take a while for that technology to really evolve and reach the point where it can be deployed on a widespread basis. But we want to be we want to be a testbed for this technology and help to facilitate its its expansion and ultimately deployment and support.

What are the challenges you see in terms of scaling those types of new sustainable technologies?

Well, as I said, the technology is new. And so since it’s new right now, you know, we’re looking at prototypes that are very expensive. We’re testing hydrogen fuel cell truck right now, the prototypes cost a million dollars each. That compares with with, you know, a standard diesel truck that cost maybe $120,000. So we’re talking about substantial increase in costs.

The battery technology is a little bit cheaper, but it’s still a lot more expensive than a diesel. We’re looking at 350 to $500,000 per unit for a truck with a for a battery electric truck. And in each case, the range is still is still developing.

So we want to work with the the manufacturers and the operators to really demonstrate that a market exists in a session of service market makers to really demonstrate that this market exists not just at the port, but throughout heavy industry and throughout all the ports and along the west coast and beyond.

All right, we got to take a break. This is Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. Tagore Subramaniam filling in, and we’ll be right back.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact 844 MLG. For you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. It’s Tagore. I’m sitting in for Matt, we have Chris Cannon from the Los Angeles Port Authority. Prior to the break, Chris was discussing with us some of the emerging technologies being utilized to help the poor, lower its emissions, discussing some of the challenges Chris, incorporating certain new technologies, such as hydrogen vehicles and battery powered vehicles.

And I think some of what you mentioned worthy, you know, just simply the financial costs, because these are new and emerging technologies. A question I had is just what the mechanism that the port would use for incentivizing these types of technologies, is the port itself phone these trucks and machinery or these operated by third parties? And how does the poor impose these types of regulations that would incentivize these new technologies on the third parties.

First of all, the port really doesn’t own the equipment, the equipment is owned by trucking companies that that work with the port. And, and, and obviously, the terminals themselves on, on the equipment. And they’re the ones that operate it. As far as incentivizes. We’re not regulators and we don’t set regulations, we don’t have that regulatory authority.

But we can do things like provide financial incentives. You know, for people who to help, you know, do grants to help them get money to operate the equipment. For trucks, for instance, one of the things we we’ve talked about doing this is having a priority appointment system, so that if you’re driving the cleanest technology, you can, can, you know, get get into the terminal faster, move your cargo in and out faster.

And so there’s an incentive there, because the more times you can get in and out of a terminal, you know, the more you’re able to, you know, satisfy your customers and then that that, of course, helps the bottom line for those operators. As far as terminals are concerned, it’s the same thing we try at least our best to help, you know, support with, with technology, or excuse me, grants to help them deploy new technologies.

Most of the terminals have found that the equipment works, the ones that we’ve been working with. When they do test it and they’re able to use it. It works very well. And for them, it’s part of their own business model to mark it to others, that they’re using it cleanest technology and that cargo can be moved through their terminals very efficiently and using the best technology to exist in the world.

And that that’s a real selling point for terminals, and also for trucking companies when they come and pick up cargo, and they can market themselves to say that they’ve got the cleanest equipment and the cleanest technology and that cargo is being moved in a way that that, you know, is green, and, and is good for the environment. And we find that once that happens, once they’re able to do that, you know, it works.

The problem, again, is the cost. As I said, the cost for battery electric trucks is three or four times what a diesel truck cost for, for fuel cell hydrogen fuel cell trucks, it’s five or six times what a diesel trucks would cost.

There’s infrastructure, if you if you’re going to have a battery electric truck, you’ve got to run a lot of infrastructure into your, your, your home base or someplace for charging. And then there’s just the time it takes to charge it, you know, it takes a while for a truck 234 hours for a truck to charge.

With hydrogen fuel cell, you don’t have quite the infrastructure problems because it is just like a gas station to fill up the tank with hydrogen instead of other fuels. So that’s an advantage. But as I said, the equipment itself is even more expensive. than then, you know, the battery electric equipment. So, so these are the challenges that you faced.

And, you know, these are the things that we’re helping to work with the operators to help them, you know, overcome some of these things this way as they begin to deploy these technologies.

Sure. And we talked a bit about some of the emissions and pollutants that are related to the delivery trucks and the terminals, are there pollutants associated with just the ship the shipping boats?

Well, there are the main pollutants that we track and that we’ve we began to track when we started to do our Clean Air action plan, our diesel particulate matter, which is very important, it’s the black carbon emissions that comes out of a diesel engine and it’s a cancer causing agents. Second, there is socked sulfur oxides, which is you know, another pollutant that is primarily resulting from the fuel use by the ships, and then knocks oxides of nitrogen, which are, are also pollutants associated with emissions from heavy duty equipment. It’s related to temperature of the emissions and, and other things and nitrogen in the air.

And so all of these things are major pollutants. And then of course, cCO, which is the, you know, the greenhouse gas causing element which is extremely important in our emissions inventory. And by the way, the way we track our programs, every year, we do a very detailed inventory of all the emissions from every single piece of equipment that operates in and around the port, we it’s a very, very detailed emissions inventory, we look at all the trucks, all the trains, all the the cargo handling equipment, tugboats, everything, we we write down all of them, we get the fuel use, we get the duty cycle, and so forth.

And all of it gives us an idea of exactly what kind of emissions are occurring and allows us to plan for, you know, where the biggest sources of emissions are, and where we need to focus our efforts and monies. But getting back to ships, and you mentioned that one of the best ways to control emissions from ships is to plug them into shore power.

When they arrive at a berth. They turn off their main engines and we have them turn off their auxiliary engines and literally plug into electricity. They’re sure We’re the first to do that anywhere in the world, for a container ship. It’s now a regulation in the state of California based on the success we had. But we were the very first to do that. And we did it 16 years ago. And that’s one of the best ways to control emissions. Another thing we do with ships is slow them down.

Starting at 40 nautical miles from the coast of of the port, we ask them to slow down. Normal Speed out in mid ocean is 20 plus knots. We ask them to sit under 12 knots. And by slowing them down that much dramatic reduction in emissions coming from those ships.

And it’s very similar to what if you were driving in your car when you get at work, you go 80 miles an hour down the highway, it’s probably fun and you’re having a good time. But if you slowed down to 50, your carbon footprint would be much better and your emissions would be better. Yeah, works the same way.

Like when you’re running low on gas, and you ease up off the gas a little bit to make sure you can get to the gas station.

That’s exactly right. It works out just like that. And, and your engine, there’s a sweet spot that the engine runs at. Its most efficient, its most fuel efficient and reduces emissions. That sweet spot is not 80 miles an hour that we all like to, you know, see people you know, you see people driving down the highway at 75 miles an hour an hour, that’s not the sweet spot, the sweet spots about 50. And that’s where you get, you know, the most efficient operation of that of that engine.

Is there a role for solar technologies currently?

Sure, sure, um, we mean, that’s a great, clean source of energy. And we we believe that it’s important. Our main harbor building, or Harbor Association building where our offices are at, is powered by solar, our cruise terminal is fully powered, powered by solar. And we’re doing a really interesting project at one of our cargo terminals, where we have solar, we’re installing solar power on top of all of the warehouses that are at the terminal.

And then that solar power is captured and stored in giant batteries, they’re heavy duty, one plus megawatt batteries. And then that allows after hours, when the sun goes down, those power can be used from those batteries. And we use, we use that to power zero emissions equipment at the terminal. So forklifts and yard tractors and everything can operate at the terminal, as well as, you know, cargo or drainage trucks that actually can come in and pick up cargo.

That’s a really interesting technology and, and it’s all powered by solar, we’re still it’s in emerging stage as well, we’re still developing and testing it. But we’re pretty excited. We got grant money from the state of California to help us develop that. So they’re kind of partnering with us using different programs.

The pricing of that, as the technology stands currently, is low enough to make it feasible to scale.

Do you mean using solar power? Yes, yes, it is the pricing for solar power works. You know, it’ll it’ll the infrastructure, the hardware costs will go down as time progresses. But even now, it’s a worthwhile and cost effective investment. It’s not the price of the solar that again, is the challenge is the price of the equipment, the cargo handling equipment, the trucks, and so forth that you use, to the power with the solar and the batteries.

Those are still high. And so those are the ones that we believe in time with economies of scale and with increased usage and, and you know, proving that the technology work, those prices will come down. So we’re confident in that.

We got to take a break. You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern, and we’ll be right back. You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. We have Chris Cannon, Melissa, Los Angeles Port Authority on Chris. Prior to the break, we were talking about some of the great work that the port is doing to reduce emissions at the Port of Los Angeles.

From an operational perspective, what operations at the plant are the largest emitters of pollutants ships, the biggest the biggest source of emissions at the port is ships. And, and then after that, it’s trucks but interestingly, when we, we, we do our evaluations of greenhouse gas and CO2. We evaluate, you know, emissions from ships.

I, you know, it’s actually the dredge trucks which are the source. So, you know, ships and dredge trucks are probably the biggest sources of emissions with trucks being a particular concern for CO2 emissions.

And what is a drayage truck?

It’s a term that we use. I had to look it up to when I very first years ago started working at the port. It’s just a regular heavy duty truck like the one you see driving on the highway. The reason it’s called a drayage truck is because it makes short moves. You know, the some of the trucks that you see on the highway are long haul on tracks, they go long distances across the country and so forth.

Drayage trucks operate just in a region. And so they’re going back and forth to warehouses and storefronts and things like that from a port, or rail yard. And you know, they make short runs. And so those are called drayage trucks, which are just essentially short haul heavy duty trucks.

Now, we were talking about some of the things that the poor was doing to reduce emissions for shipping, such as the reducing the speed at which the ships travel and providing charging stations, when they arrive at the port, is there a technology that you feel is emerging and available that could actually reduce the emissions of the ship when it’s operating?

Well, there are ways to redeeming while it’s operating well, the best way to reduce emissions from a ship, while its operating is to slow it down. And I mentioned that. But the other thing is to use clean fuels. And, you know, now the US EPA requires that the very cleanest fuels be be used by ships within 200 miles of the coast of North America.

But I’m proud to say that we were, we were the ones that first pioneered the use of, you know, giving incentives to ships to use the very cleanest fuels, and we did it before EPA, or anybody else got involved. And so that’s something that, you know, we’re very proud that we helped to pioneer. But then the other thing is the actual engines of the chips themselves. You know, there are technologies now to reduce NOx emissions for its SCR unit selective catalytic reduction units, and other technologies are, are, are being used to reduce ship emissions.

And then, you know, we believe that, that as we get, you know, further along, even in this decade, we’ve got to start looking at, at reduced carbon fuels. So, zero emission, or at least near zero emission ships, or we’re actually in the process of talking to that via one of the tugboat operators, thinking about using a hydrogen fuel cell for a tugboat.

We know other ship operators are starting to use alternative fuels. And so, so zero emissions equipment, or ultra clean emissions equipment on the chips, ultimately, is what’s going to be needed. It’s just this gonna take a while the chips, once they’re put into to service, they stick around for 2030 years and so begin to transition the technologies, we’re going to have to look for ways to incentivize the ship operators to to change that equipment out sooner.

And that’s one of the challenges that we face, we are looking forward to working with the shipping lines and others to find ways to incentivize those kinds of transitions.

What are some of the ways that you think you might be able to incentivize the ship operators to adopt some of these technologies?

Well, we have programs now where, you know, there’s there’s reductions in in Dockage, fees, berthing fees, other kinds of reductions in fees that that they, you know, they incur when they arrive reports, sometimes just an a financial incentive, if they bring, you know, cleanest technology, maybe they get, you know, a bonus or some other sort of financial incentive from the port’s that helps.

We’re working with ports in Asia now, through the C40 organization to establish a green corridor, which would be a way to, to incentivize clean ship operations on both ends of the journey. So, you know, all of this is voluntary, because we don’t regulate the ships. But working with the shipping lines and the ship operators, you know, to find ways to do this, we can use incentives and other things.

And this kind of a green shipping line where we’d recreate the incentives on both ends of the journey helps, because that allows for an even greater potential financial benefit for the ship operators, if they realize that they can, you know, on both ends of a journey, receive some kind of reward. So these are the things that we’re working on. I’m just talking to ship operators.

And then, as I said, you know, similar to what we talked about earlier with, with other equipment operators, a lot of the shipping lines have said to us that it is, it is important that they can market to their customers, that they are using the cleanest technology available. And so if they can tell their customers that their ships are the cleanest ships in the ocean, and that they are moving cargo in a way that is the most environmentally friendly way they can, that’s, that’s a plus for them. And they see that as an opportunity to get more business.

Because a lot of the car owners now are starting to do that, we’re I won’t give names because I don’t want to, you know, you know, give advantage to anybody. But some of the big names that you all know, I could give some of the names, and you’d recognize them, some of the biggest cargo owners in the world, are starting now to look for ways to support the movement of their cargo in all phases, not just Marine, but on land as well, using the very cleanest technology, and they want to be able to market to their customers, if that’s what they do.

So the shipping lines are keen on this, the railroads are starting to get keen on it, the trucking lines are the terminals, all the different links of the goods movement chain are now starting to ask themselves if there’s a way for them to, to develop clean technologies and zero emission technologies in particular. And these are things that we hope to help to facilitate.

Oh, that’s great. And, you know, this is all super interesting, we’re living in a exciting time with all these new technologies. You know, you talked about some of the great work that you had done in reducing some emissions over the last 10-20 years.

How were you able to do that, prior to the advent of a lot of these technologies was set goals, we we, you know, very carefully spent time working with all of the manufacturers and, and understanding the science of, of emission, and technologies and so forth. And we tried to learn what we think was possible, what we thought was possible.

And then also, you know, maybe just go a little bit further than what we thought was possible to kind of push ourselves and an industry was open to talking to us about these things. And they continue to be open to talking to us about looking for new ways to push for cleaner technologies. And so that’s how we did it, we set goals for ourselves based on where we thought we could go and what we thought industry was capable of handling.

We work closely with them, we also work closely with the regulators to you know, because they are talking to industry, and they’re understanding what, you know, technologies exist and where they want to go. And we talked to the community groups and others who were very interested in, in these organizations, or excuse me, in these programs, and we we set goals for ourselves, you know, we had a clean truck program, for instance, that, that, you know, where we set goals for emissions reductions with trucks?

Well, that was a combination of talking to the state and local agencies about, you know, where they want to go with clean technology and clean trucks. And, you know, they’re pretty smart. And they know, they understand the industry pretty well. And so we talked to them, and then we talked to the trucking operators, and then the trucking manufacturers and all of it together allowed us to set some goals for ourselves for trucks and, and, you know, we were kind of pushing but, but um, you know, that’s what we that’s how we did it.

And it’s done in the past, we hope to do that, again, where we set zero mission goals for ourselves. We first mentioned zero missions, and we got a lot of groans and eye rolling. But, you know, actually industry began to embrace it. And we were really happy that the governor of California announced through an executive order that he wants to push for zero emissions, he set the same goal of 2035 as we did and we were very proud that he did that. So there’s starting to be a consensus now developing on you know, we’ve got to do this and, and just turns out that the time we said is good.

Alright, well, we got to take a quick break. You’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. All right, you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. Tagore Subramaniam sitting in for Matt. We got Chris Cannon from LA port authority with us. Chris we were talking about the goal of zero emissions. You know, what does zero emissions mean?

It is it is a term that is is are used differently by different people. When we say zero emissions, it’s important that you ask that question actually. Because when we say zero emissions, we refer to tailpipe emissions, zero tailpipe emissions. In this case, there are no tailpipe. And on zero emission technologies, the the barrier electric trucks and hydrogen fuel cell trucks don’t have a tailpipe. And so we we say zero tailpipe emissions.

But the reason your question is a good one is because there are emissions associated with the creation of the electricity and electricity that’s used to charge a battery, or the creation of the hydrogen, which is the use to use hydrogen fuel cells. So it’s not completely zero emissions. Because there is there are emissions associated with the creation of those of those energies of those fuels.

And so it’s important that now I do we have zero emission technologies, zero tailpipe emissions, and heavy duty operation of ports and other heavy duty industries, but that the creation of electricity and the creation of hydrogen and other fuels that lead to the zero emission technologies are also done in a way that’s green and clean.

So we need clean power generation, we need clean and green hydrogen to hydrogen, excuse me generation. Those are important too. We can’t forget about that part of it. Because that has to be done, as well. And when we talk about the goal of reaching zero emissions by 2030, are we talking about zero emissions across the the port or is it a specific aspect of the port’s operations?

Well, we set a goal of zero missions for container terminal equipment by 2030 was set a goal of zero emissions for drayage trucks operating at the ports by 2035. There still are other sources, as I said earlier, the biggest source of emissions is still the trucks, then, excuse me, is still the big ships. And you know, the sad again, the biggest source of emissions is the ships, we can’t get to zero emissions on the ships by 2030.

But we’re working on it, we want to we’re Believe it or not, we’re actually trying to find ways to reduce emissions from ships. And that’s a, that’s a goal we’ve set for ourselves is to really try and take a big chunk out of those emissions as we can over the course of this decade, we won’t get to full zero emissions, but we can do that, we’re going to plug them all into shore power, so they’ll have no emissions when they’re at birth, we hope to have that done by 2030.

And as I told you, we’re going to reduce the emissions, you know, continue to reduce the emissions of the ships as they come in to birth and come into the port by slowing them down. And so we’re talking about making sure that all the ships are slowed down. cleaner fuels, you know, are things that are we’re talking about. Now, hovercraft I mentioned, we’re talking to one of the major tugboat operators to do a hydrogen fuel cell harbor craft tugboat. So that’s kind of cool, new, it’s not something that that hasn’t been done much.

We’re working with the major rail operators to do a zero emission locomotive, we’re actually part of a test to develop one. And so it’s going to be tested here at the Port of Los Angeles. And we’re pretty excited about that. So you know, all of the different sources of emissions are being you know, we’re not going to leave any out.

But we set the full zero emission goals for the cargo handling equipment and for the trucks for 2030 and 2035. Because we think those are the technologies where, you know, we can get to zero. And the other is we’re going to just get as low as we can, as soon as we can.

Although it’d be great if we could do that. We’ve been talking a lot about air pollutants and air emissions. What kind of impact does the port have on the water surrounding the port? Are there pollutants going into the water? And are there efforts being done to kind of reduce any impact those might have?

Well, it’s interesting. We we we have you know, as I said, the largest container port in the western hemisphere. And you would think that with all that activity, you know, you’d have a lot of dirty water and the fact is the Port of Los Angeles has very, very clean water. And we very rarely exceed any kind of standards for water quality.

We do testing on a monthly basis and we always meet the standards. We do every five years a full ecological study of the port, and we just finished one. And we showed that we have over 1000 species of fish, birds and invertebrates, algae, and marine mammals thriving in our ports. It’s really interesting, I, we’ve got a lot of eelgrass, we’ve got large kelp forests, we see a lot of marine mammals such as sea lions, and harbor seals, we have dolphins, and even gray whales that occasionally come into the port. We’re very, very excited about that. And it’s pretty amazing when you see all of that.

And, you know, people who, who are, are into it who, you know, keep track of that are always amazed at how clean the water is. And it’s because we’ve implemented programs to, you know, assure that that, you know, discharge into the port is is avoided. And that, you know, the ships cannot just dump into the ports when they arrive here. And so we have a lot of different programs to make sure that the quality of the water quality is good, and it’s been very successful. We’re very, very proud of that.

Well, that’s great to hear, you know, obviously, we’re living through some extraordinary times right now, with the COVID pandemic, what type of impact has the pandemic had on the port’s operations? And is there any environmental component to that?

Well, it was, at the beginning of the pandemic, we our cargo volume, just went straight down, we were substantial reduction in cargo volumes in the beginning, and then it’s buttered for a while. And then all of a sudden, cargo volumes went up, as people were still living at home, but they were you know, using services delivering through again, I’m not gonna mention names of companies, but you can push buttons on your phone these days and have things delivered to your house.

And so people are doing that. And as a result, it’s led to an extraordinary increase in in goods moved into the ports, we’re seeing record cargo volumes, in the last few months because of that. And so that’s the been the result of, of, you know, the pandemic.

As far as our air quality programs and water quality programs, we have not stopped at all, we continue to require the same environmental controls have our tenants in the ship operators, occasionally, we’ve had the governor has, has had a little short periods here and there, when we get super hot that he’s had to have us for three or four day period, maybe stop plugging the ships into shore power because of electricity shortages in Southern California.

But even those have been few and far between. So we’ve we’ve done our best to do to reduce emissions and continue to do it. One major problem that we do have, though, is because of all that extra cargo that’s coming in. We have a lot of ships sitting out in Anchorage, waiting for birth. And there are a lot of emissions associated with that. So we’re, we’re trying to work with the shipping lines to find ways for us to plan in the future to avoid ship sitting out of Anchorage.

Because those emissions from ships getting out of Anchorage are not good. And that’s something that we need to work on, to try and work with the industry and the shipping lines to avoid in the future. And even now to reduce the Anchorage is even even today.

That’s great to hear. You know, you were trained as a lawyer, can you just discuss a little bit before we close the show on on your career path, and specifically, you know, how you transitioned into public service and, you know, working at the port,

I’m lucky, I get a chance to do something that, that that, you know, kind of combines a lot of different things in my background, I studied government in college and also did a lot of studying of science. And then I of course went to grad school and law. And so here at the port we have a lot of, of challenging technical issues.

We have a lot of policy questions. We have a lot of issues that require you know, legal knowledge and, you know, understanding of the laws and how we have to comply with those laws for environmental purposes.

And so I get to do a little bit of everything and all the things that kind of make Ask my background and I couldn’t be happier, I couldn’t be more excited about what I do and, and, you know, I get to be on the cutting edge of, you know, things like moving toward cleaner fuels and reducing our carbon footprint and new technologies. It’s just so much fun. And it’s a blessing to be able to do it.

Chris, if our listeners want to learn more about what’s happening at the port, what sort of resources are available for them?

Portofla.org. And we have a pretty robust website that has a lot of information about the port, including all of our environmental programs. And so you can you can look at the website and find out what we’re doing. And if you have any questions, anything we can do to be of service, we’d be happy to help.

Well, that’s about all the time we have for today. Thank you, Chris, for coming on the show and for all your hard work at the Port of Los Angeles. It was an educational experience, and you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern. Tagore Subramaniam sitting in for Matt, thank you.

Thank you.

As you may know your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.