Old diesels banned at ports
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach formally launched a $1.6 billion initiative Wednesday,aimed at reducing diesel truck emissions by 80 percent within five years.
“Today, the children of Los Angeles and the South Bay are breathing easier,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who called the program his “most significant environmental achievement” since taking office in 2005.
“People said it couldn’t be done,” he said. “They said the fight would be too hard, with too many obstacles in our way and too many special interests aligned against us. But we kept on trucking because we knew the people of our port communities needed relief.”
The first phase of the Clean Trucks Program immediately bans about 2,000 diesel trucks built before 1989, comprising 10 percent of the rigs that haul goods to and from the nation’s busiest port complex. The move is expected to remove 350 tons of harmful diesel emissions, which make up about 30 percent of the pollution generated by trucks each year.
Truck traffic dropped by up to one-third at some terminals on Wednesday morning, but operations gradually picked up by midafternoon, according to officials at both ports.
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