Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , U.S. Law and Policy
The American Lung Association released its most recent installment of State of the Air today. If trophies were awarded for securing top spots for filthy air, California would have a truck load of trophies coming our way. California secured 8...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Environmental Justice , U.S. Law and Policy
For those of you who follow my blog and David Pettit’s blog, you may have followed the epic battle that ensued between the Federal Maritime Commission and the Port of Los Angeles over the Clean Trucks Program last year. To...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Moving Beyond Oil , U.S. Law and Policy
The Adopt-a-Highway program has had success in removing litter from our roadways. Even though our roadways may be prettier due to the lack of litter, a harm related to roads exists that in many ways is more frightening. The harm...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
It had been a while since I traveled down to the waterfront area of Wilmington, California. Most of my recent meetings have been in East Los Angeles or further North in Wilmington. However, last week, I had the good fortune...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , U.S. Law and Policy
A new study about the staggering impacts of highway and ship pollution was released by a team of scientists and academics, including some of the most pioneering researchers on issues of health related impacts from degraded air quality. The study...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy
This week, the Federal Maritime Commission decided to file a motion to withdraw its lawsuit against the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's two busiest ports. Reversing, the Bush-era decision to thwart efforts by these ports to...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy
Back in October, the NRDC filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Federal Maritime Commission related to the agency's review of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach's Clean Trucks Programs. Specifically, NRDC was interested in...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , The Media and the Environment
I have always admired the Port of Long Beach's award winning media outreach team. They were recently awarded several prestigious honors at the "Excellence in Communication" awards hosted by the California Association of Public Information Officials (CAPIO). Their media team is...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy
I suppose the Governing Board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) was listening to the Judas Priest song, Breaking the Law, this morning before it held its public hearing on Proposed Rule 317. SCAQMD is one of...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
The Port of Long Beach will shortly release its final environmental review documents for the Middle Harbor Development Project. My, how times have changed since the Pier J debacle of 2004. In 2004, "green" was a four-letter word when talking...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , U.S. Law and Policy
In the era of global warming, plain vanilla air pollution -- like smog -- sometimes gets pushed to the side. Some people may consider it the less popular sister of the homecoming queen (CO2). However, this does not diminish the...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy
Today, the Engineering and Environmental Committee of the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the Port of Long Beach heard an amendment to provide more money to shippers to clean up the filthy fuel these ships currently burn. The Committee pushed sweetening this...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Moving Beyond Oil
Hallelujah, the future is here! The Los Angeles Times covered the much anticipated event of the all-electric truck rolling off a Los Angeles assembly line yesterday. Asthma inhalers throughout the region probably trembled as 25 brand new trucks that release no...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy
After years of waiting, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach started collecting a container fee to fund cleaner trucks yesterday. To the best of my knowledge, the ports are still operating, and the sky has not fallen as some doomsday...
Posted by Adrian Martinez in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Moving Beyond Oil , U.S. Law and Policy
I attended the Project Committee meeting for the I-710 project last week. This Committee directs how the future expansion project for the I-710 should proceed. For those of you not familiar with Southern California traffic, but have heard the horror...
