Conservation League backs responsible port expansion

Last Monday, columnist Ron Brinson challenged the Coastal Conservation League to explain its position on the port. We welcome that opportunity.

We support the ongoing operation of the port, and its expansion, with one simple qualification: the Port of Charleston should ensure that its operations do not endanger our health and quality of life. Our region is home to more than 600,000 people. It's a diverse economy encompassing virtually every business sector from health care to tourism to manufacturing. It is set in an environment of unparalleled beauty. Our economic future depends on protecting all these assets.

No one debates whether the port can operate responsibly. We believe it can and has an obligation to uphold the highest standards of port performance in the nation. Our citizens and businesses deserve nothing less. This requires more than a fancy marketing campaign. It means significant improvement in the operation of terminals and, most importantly, it requires major reductions in air pollution from the two largest sources of pollution in our region — ships and trucks.

The risks we face are real and serious. Air pollution is on the verge of violating federal standards. For two years now, the American Lung Association has given Charleston an "F" for particulate matter, an extremely dangerous pollutant that causes asthma, strokes, heart disease and cancer.

Furthermore, recent research has shown that southeastern port cities such as ours are at greater risk from air pollution than other regions. Air pollution readily reacts with air-born salt particles to produce dangerous levels of ozone. Two weeks ago, The Post and Courier reported Charleston's ozone levels within one point of violating federal standards.

Our roads are heavily congested. Sections of Interstates 26 and 526 virtually gridlock in the morning and afternoon. Every analysis shows the proposed terminal will make the situation far worse. The SPA's own Environmental Impact Statement projects currently uncongested sections of I-26 becoming gridlocked. That's no surprise since every container that passes through the terminal will do so on a truck from I-26.

The SPA predicts 7,000 trucks per day will enter and leave the facility — roughly one every five seconds. In spite of this, the SPA has made no provision to move even a single container by rail.

Similarly, the actions taken and proposed by the port are entirely inadequate to address the problem of dangerous air pollution. The SPA's Environmental Impact Statement projects the port's emissions exceeding federal air standards for fine particulate matter by 30 percent. They have committed to use low-sulfur diesel in terminal machinery several years ahead of the date they would be forced to do so by federal law. But they have ignored the cause of 90 percent of port pollution, ships and trucks being the largest contributors.

Other ports have addressed these same problems and remain competitive. The SPA should insist that ships approaching the port switch to clean fuel offshore and not return to dirty "bunker fuel" until they leave the region. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles require this and we should settle for no less. Trucks should be systematically upgraded with diesel particulate filters. Again, West Coast ports have already begun this process.

Finally, the port should outfit the proposed terminal with rail on the docks, like virtually every terminal that has been built worldwide in the past few decades. Further, it should organize its existing terminals to utilize rail more extensively. One example of how this could be done is the proposal to barge containers from the Wando Terminal to a rail site on the Cooper River, significantly reducing trucks on I-526. Rail is six times more fuel efficient for moving containers — critically important for competitiveness in this age of sky-rocketing fuel prices.

Mr. Brinson suggests that the Conservation League should return to advocacy of a private terminal in Jasper County.

We have not deviated from our assertion that the Jasper site, constructed entirely with private funds and requiring minimal public infrastructure investment, presents an appealing alternative to the $1.2 billion Navy Base project, which Mr. Brinson has described as the most expensive terminal in history.

The Jasper site has an added advantage. By allowing the largest ships to load and unload 10 miles below the Savannah port, the need to dredge a deeper shipping channel to Savannah would be eliminated. Besides saving public money, this would protect the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge from salt water intrusion.

The Conservation League's position is that we should operate the cleanest port in the country, with ships burning clean fuel and using electric power when docked, trucks outfitted with state-of-the-art pollution technology and access to rail at the terminals. The Navy base terminal should not open until we have accomplished these changes.

And because Charleston will inevitably have to deal with capacity limits, either now or once the Navy base terminal is full, we should honestly compare a new terminal in Jasper County to the challenges and costs — both financial and environmental — of dealing with additional expansion in Charleston.

Laura D. Gates is chair of the Coastal Conservation League, former vice president of the Field Museum of Natural History and former partner of McKinsey and Company, Inc.