Results tagged “portofla”

Two to three hundred truckers are currently making their way up the 710 Freeway towards city hall in protest of "new environmental fees at the ports that they say threaten their livelihoods," according to the LA Times [Update: they have arrived to downtown]. Specially, they are protesting container fees for the Clean Truck Program, which has been law for over a year.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that they are fining a container company nearly $50,000 for environmental violations. APM Terminals Pacific Limited-- one of the world’s largest container terminal companies--reportedly discharged industrial-activity storm water at its marine shipping container terminal facility, a violation of Clean Water Act and the California National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, according to the agency.

It looks like the Port of Los Angeles, which brings in billions for the city, is behind on cleaning up the popular but chronically polluted Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. It looks likely that the city will miss a federal compliance deadline next Spring and people will be enjoying their summer swims in some yucky water. "Starting April 1, Cabrillo Beach must meet fecal bacteria water quality standards 100% of the time from April1 -Oct. 31. The liability to the City of Los Angeles to comply with the water quality requirements could be substantial, yet the pace to complete the Cabrillo projects in time to comply with the deadlines continues to be far too slow," explains Mark Gold of Heal the Bay. He says a contract management “short cut” is the culprit in slowing this project down. "As a result of poor time-management by the Port, the city will likely be out of compliance with the beach water quality standards when the April 1 deadline arrives. The end result? The public will continue to swim in polluted waters and the city will face tens of thousands of dollars in potential liability."

San Francisco photographer Thomas Hawk, whose name spread around the internet after a contentious ousting at SFMOMA, was in the Los Angeles area last month taking photos around the Port of Long Beach when security and police got involved. He was not arrested, but patrols asked him to leave, even though he was legally doing nothing wrong, he says.