One book’s look back at the founding of the Port of Los Angeles

Phineas Banning pulled up some deep dreams from the bottom of San Pedro Bay. There, he imagined the greatest shipping center in the world, built upon the purest port land he had ever seen. But if railroad tycoon Collis Huntington had his way, [...]

Eighty-five years ago, author Upton Sinclair led a free speech fight in San Pedro. Today, it’s remembered as the birth of the Southern California ACLU

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
It was out of the darkness that Upton Sinclair trudged up San Pedro’s Liberty Hill, a tiring climb past an assembly of cheering dockworkers and a squad of [...]

Chanting slogans and carrying signs — most of them critical of Mayor Bob Foster – an assortment of public health organizations and community activists  marched for an hour outside Long Beach City Hall Tuesday afternoon, complaining that a new Port of Long Beach (POLB) policy unfairly places the burden of reducing air pollution on the low-incomes of independent truckers.
When they [...]

Just got done hearing Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster speak, at this month’s Beer & Politics session, at Gallagher’s Pub & Grill.
He had tough words for polluters in the port–and some compassion for all the wildcat truck drivers out there who will be forced by the Port of Long Beach’s new clean air regulations to [...]

Tuesday’s Long Beach Harbor Commission approval of a five-year plan to clean up diesel truck pollution by 2012 will forever change the faces of the truckers hauling your food, flat-screen TVs and furniture.
The question, as the Port’s first deadline for potential polluters looms–Oct. 1, the date when pre-1989 rigs will become verboten–is how.

The Daily Breeze reports today that the plan to build two new cruise ship terminals at the Port of Los Angeles is running into some resistance. Since San Pedro is bereft of any real city governance, here’s what one of the Neighborhood Council members had to say about the potential of cruise ships parked along [...]

You read this on the Los Angeles Times website yesterday, and in the Press-Telegram today–but if you didn’t (or if you’d just like to see it summarized below):
Two environmental groups are giving the Port of Long Beach 90 days to throttle back on its diesel soot and smog–or face a lawsuit. In. Federal. Court.
Those two [...]

Port cargo container fees to pay for cleaner-running trucks
The Long Beach Harbor Commission has approved charging fees of $35 or $70 on every container entering or leaving the Port of Long Beach by diesel truck, starting next year.
The money–an estimated $1.6 billion per year by the measure’s end in 2012–will help pay for cleaner-running, short-haul [...]

Breathing easy by 2012
A month ago, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles issued new regulations aimed at cutting down on the pollution belched out by trucks, and now it’s the state’s turn. The California Air Resources Board is considering new regulations for the state’s ports, covering trucks and more.

Six years after 9/11, America’s second-largest port is still open for terrorist business

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA
I’m a big one for historical remembrances–1066 (William the Conqueror lands on the English coast), 1945 (the atom bomb dropped twice in a single month), and 1977 (premiere of Three’s Company, with the first episode “A Man About the House”–hilarious)–and, [...]