$50 million deal gives long-delayed SoCal terminal project go-ahead

Los Angeles port officials Friday approved a multimillion-dollar agreement with opponents of a long-stalled Port of Los Angeles terminal expansion project that will allow the $170 million project to move forward without the threat of litigation.

Three Los Angeles port commissioners voted unanimously -- two members were absent -- to approve a memorandum of understanding between the port and a group of 20 environmental and community groups that will allow the Environmental Impact Report for the port's TransPacific, or TraPac, terminal expansion to move forward unopposed. The groups had threatened to sue the city to stop the project, which the groups claimed did not ove fast enough or far enough to reduce pollution from the terminal's expanded operations.

The 10-year-old TraPac development project seeks to modernize and expand the 176-acre container terminal to 243 acres. The expansion would also provide the terminal with on-dock rail, expanded berthing capabilities, and improved gate traffic flow by the realignment of a connecting street.

The MOU, composed by the city and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) without involvement of the TraPac operators, will create a Port Community Mitigation Trust Fund with the port providing an initial investment of more than $12 million. The agreement also calls for the creation of a non-profit group to administer the fund. Money from the fund will be used to support pollution mitigation programs at schools outside the port, to support health programs outside the port, and to provide for studies into off-port impacts.

City Councilmember Janice Hahn, who represents the port area, said the plan could eventually shift more than $50 million into off-port projects.

In return for the trust fund, the environmental and community groups, headed up by the NRDC, agreed not to sue the city over the terminal project. However, the groups did not forego the right to sue the city or port over future port development programs.

Late last year, the port broke a self-imposed moratorium on port development when the Harbor Commission approved the TraPac EIR. The approval was the first move toward a major development project at the port in more than five years.

The port, along with officials from the neighboring Long Beach port, have pushed back development and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on environmental programs since a 2002 Los Angeles port project was squashed by a NRDC lawsuit. Los Angeles port officials eventually settled with the NRDC at the cost of nearly $100 million in project retrofits and lost revenues.

Following port commission approval of the TraPac plan in December, the 1,000-page EIR was sent to the Los Angeles City Council for a required vote. Before the council was able to vote, the environmental and community groups filed an appeal with the council against the EIR. A precursor to a full lawsuit, the appeal led to the council referring the document to its Committee on Trade, Commerce, and Tourism, headed by Hahn.

According to comments at the port meeting Thursday, Hahn was instrumental in negotiating the agreement.

Thursday's agreement will also allow the TraPac project to move forward without an official vote in the Los Angeles City Council. The council is normally required to approve any major decisions approved by the harbor board.

Port and city staff worked on the MOU throughout the weekend, and port officials apologized during the Thursday meeting for calling the emergency harbor board meeting with less than 24-hours of public notice. According to the port, recent technical issues with the ports e-mail system may have led to a number of people on the port notification lists not receiving the message about the emergency meeting.

In another issue, the port and city dedication of port-generated money for uses outside the port has called into question the requirements of the state's tideland land grants that define what port money can be spent on.

According to the California State Lands Commission, which is charged with oversight of the port land grants, Los Angeles city and port staff, while not required to, did not contact the SLC during the development of the MOU to discuss possible compliance of the MOU with state tidelands statutes.

The state's land grants entrusted the ports to various city entities, such as Los Angeles, and narrowly defined the uses of port money. These uses are generally restricted to water-related commerce, navigation, fishing, wildlife preservation and recreational uses within the tideland areas. Tidelands areas are defined as the high-tide mark when the original land grants were passed, which in the case of Los Angeles was 1911.

Source: American Shipper