The Port of Long Beach adopted new rules regulating truck emissions earlier this week. It’s part of a joint effort with the Port of Los Angeles to limit vehicle-produced air pollution.

But the trucks, of course, are just one source of air pollution at the ports– what about the ships? A new study from the Rochester Institute of Technology examines the health impact of air pollution caused by marine shipping, and the results make for grim reading.

Pollution from marine shipping causes approximately 60,000 premature cardiopulmonary and lung cancer deaths around the world each year, according to a report scheduled to appear in the Dec. 15 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, the journal of the American Chemical Society.

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Conducted by James Corbett of University of Delaware and James Winebrake from Rochester Institute of Technology, the study correlates the global distribution of particulate matter—black carbon, sulfur, nitrogen and organic particles—released from ships’ smoke stacks with heart disease and lung cancer mortalities in adults. The results indicate that approximately 60,000 people die prematurely around the world each year from shipping-related emissions. Under current regulation, and with the expected growth in shipping activity, Corbett and Winebrake estimate the annual mortalities from ship emissions could increase by 40 percent by 2012.

Europe has the highest mortality rate in the study, with an estimate of almost 27,000 premature deaths, while the figure for North American is 5,000.

The study is the first of its kind, and is limited in scope (“The focus on long-term exposure to particulate matter in this study does not extend to impacts on children or other related health issues such as respiratory disease, asthma, hospital emissions and the economic impact of missed workdays and lost productivity.”), but is expected to be very helpful in the current deliberations of the International Marine Organization (IMO), regarding how to regulate ship emissions.

Given the difficulties of getting just the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to agree to a joint set of rules on truck emissions– rules that were “watered down”, according to American Shipper magazine, at the very last moment– I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the IMO to come to any conclusions.

Tags: air pollution, American Shipper, deaths, International Marine Organization, Port of Long Beach, PORT OF LOS ANGELES, regulations, Rochester Institute of Technology, ships, trucks