And the Winner Is...The Communities of San Pedro and Wilmington

Back in April of 2008, my colleague, David Pettit, wrote a post about the historic agreement between environmental, community, labor groups, and the Port of Los Angeles over the TraPac terminal expansion.  

Over the past two and half years, the parties to this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) have sought to implement that historic compromise.  The years of hard work culminated last night in a historic vote of the Board of Harbor Commissioners from the Port of Los Angeles. After five hours of deliberation, the Board of Harbor Commissioners approved the Operating Agreement, which will establish a nonprofit entity to help administer the Port Community Mitigation Trust Fund for the communities of Wilmington and San Pedro. 

This fund is designed to spend up to $50 million in mitigation for the communities surrounding the Port of Los Angeles.  Also, importantly, the Agreement allowed port expansion to continue concurrently.  About a decade ago when community groups and the Port of Los Angeles were embroiled in a battle over the China Shipping terminal expansion, people would have thought pigs would fly before community, environmental and port leadership would work together to mitigate harmful impacts from port operations.  A decade later, there is a partnership forming that I am hopeful will lead to better relations between the Port and the residents near the Port. 

Now, along the way, there were some speed bumps.  For example, inexplicably, the shipping industry represented by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association opposed moving forward with this mechanism to provide mitigation yesterday.  Also, a former city employee has exhibited some sour grapes over the deal.  Even with this negativity over plans to provide desperately needed mitigation to the communities of San Pedro and Wilmington, the Board of Harbor Commissioners approved moving forward, which is a positive step to the implementation of this agreement.   

Overall, it is important to thank our political leaders that have been champions and worked tirelessly to make sure this moment became a reality.  Janice Hahn has been a great champion of this agreement, and mitigation to reduce the impacts of the port on communities.  Mayor Villaraigosa also deserves a lot of credit for his vision to craft an accord to make the environmental and community groups work together to allow expansion and concurrent community mitigation.  The Board of Harbor Commissioners should be commended for taking seriously the issue of reducing the impacts of port operations on local communities.  Their effort has been nothing short of remarkable.  The Port of Los Angeles executive management led by Dr. Geraldine Knatz also deserves a lot of credit for their diligence and hard work.  Finally, the City Attorney’s office deserves credit for many hours of work, which culminated in their final stamp of legal approval yesterday afternoon.  However, I want to remind these great leaders that now the hard work begins -- a nonprofit needs to be set up and get running.  I hope this political leadership continues as the nonprofit comes to life and solicits and funds vital mitigation projects for the communities of San Pedro and Wilmington.

Now that I have thanked all the political leaders, it is important to thank the groups that worked tirelessly to implement the agreement.  These were the groups that had the courage to stand up for more community mitigation.  Many in our group are volunteers who toiled for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours on this agreement.  I thank folks like Kathleen Woodfield, Chuck Hart, Jesse Marquez, Communities for a Better Environment, Physicians for Social Responsibility through Dr. John G. Miller, and the Harbor Watts Economic Development Corporation.  Also, our consulting team, which included Mission Infrastructure, Public Counsel, Dongell, Lawerence & Finney, LLP, and the Law Offices of Joe Burton.  I also think a lot of credit should go to Public Counsel for their dedication on so many issues, but pertinent to this agreement, finding consensus.

Now, I feel like I have just won an Oscar and the music is sounding---i.e. a blog post thanking people is a lot of sweat.  Well, all in all, I can’t wait for the first projects to get funding.  There is a lot more work to be done, but this should not diminish the great achievement of yesterday.  I for one am very proud.  

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