San Francisco Steps Up to Address Air Pollution from America's Cup Yacht Races

As San Francisco prepares for the America’s Cup 34 yacht races over the next few years, much criticism has been raised over environmental and community impacts of this massive event.  With the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the event coming out today, we are very pleased to see one of our top tier issues, significant air pollution, fully mitigated with a robust set of measures.  If all of these measures go forward, San Francisco will experience improved air quality and public health as a result of this event.

How can a yacht race cause significant air pollution and who cares here in San Francisco, where the air is relatively clean?

Well, San Francisco does have toxic hotspots of air pollution, with the East side officially recognized by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District as disproportionately impacted by toxic air pollution in its Community Air Risk Evaluation (CARE) program.  And yachts tend to run on very dirty diesel engines, as do support vessels, generators used for power, private spectator boats and much of the construction equipment that will be hard at work building out venues for the race.  Of greatest concern was the plan to shut down the new shore-power service that has allowed cruise ships to power down dirty engines while docked in San Francisco so that they can run on clean, hydro-based grid power.  The combined air pollution impacts of the whole project including disabling shore-power would have been enormous:

• Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions - a precursor to smog – totaling more than from all Bay Area refineries combined;
• Fine particulate pollution would have been greater than all diesel trucks in San Francisco; and
• Organics (“ROG”) - another smog precursor including many carcinogens – would have been twice as high as from all gas stations in San Francisco.

Together with other environmental and health advocates, we have had an extended dialogue with port and city officials over air pollution and public health concerns.  The Final EIR released today represents a major effort on the part of port and city staff to address these concerns and for that, we thank them.  The mitigation package in the Final EIR includes significant pollution reduction measures such as a major shore-side power project at the Pier 70 shipyard, additional clean construction requirements including the use of grid power instead of diesel generators where possible, cleaner marine fuels, cleaner race-sponsored boats, shore-side power for yachts and a swifter return to shore-side power for cruise ships at pier 27.

If all of these measures go forward, San Francisco will benefit from cleaner air as a result of this project.  This effort to address air pollution from the races shows that the City of San Francisco is serious about making the America’s Cup a green event.