We’ll all breathe easier when the dock strike is over

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

Normally, we don’t think about the ports of Los Angeles and Long

Beach except to wonder when they’re going to pony up the funds to

restore the Bolsa Chica wetlands. Sure, that’s a rather provincial

view of that bustling center of international trade, but that happens

to be our mindset. The cargo ships that come and go on a daily basis

through those ports are usually out of sight and far from our minds.

Until now.

All week the ships have stacked up deeper and deeper off our coast

due to the dock worker lock-out. We drove down Pacific Coast Highway

the other night after a scrumptious dinner at the Red Pearl Downtown.

We were amazed at the large number of ships sitting off our coast,

lights blazing into the gathering fog. We pulled off the highway and

parked to stare in awe.

I thought it was rather pretty, twinkling lights dotting the

horizon as far as the eye could see, ships stretched out for miles

under a starlit sky. Vic, incurable romantic that he is, thought

about all the air pollution that those idling ships were creating

with their big diesel engines. He pointed out that something was

powering all those lights, and that something was diesel fuel, which

pours pollutants into the air off the coast of Orange County. Sigh.

So I had to come home and write a column about it.

A visit to the Environmental Protection Agency Web site informed

me that there are 35,000 cargo ships plying the oceans of this planet

at any given time. Most of them, fortunately, are not idling off our

shore, but the longer the strike goes on, the more of them will sit

out there.

Much to my surprise, I learned that cargo and container ships are

actually leaders in fuel economy with low carbon dioxide emission

levels, one of the gases that contribute to global warming. So from

that point of view, the idle ships are probably not as polluting as

the cars jammed up on the San Diego Freeway at rush hour. But the bad

news is that the fuel that these ships burn is low-grade bunker fuel.

This is what remains after high-grade fuels are refined from crude

oil. In fact, because of the dirty fuel they burn, cargo ships are a

major contributor to smog in coastal port cities.

According to the agency’s Web site, cargo ships are the last

source of unregulated emissions of SOx, NOx, and PM. Hang on while I

yell into the next room to get Vic to clarify what the heck that

means. Boy, he’s handy to have around when I’m writing this technical

stuff.

OK, here’s the scoop. SOx doesn’t stand for dirty socks like I

thought. That’s chemical shorthand for sulfur dioxide and sulfur

oxide emissions. Those are the nasties that mix with water vapor to

become acid rain and acid fog. Terrific. My romantic walk on the

beach was just a jaunt through acid fog. It’s a wonder I have any

lung tissue left at all.

Even when these big diesel ships are moving, they are a

significant source of background atmospheric sulfate aerosols all up

and down the West Coast. Now that dozens of ships are idling

offshore, we are experiencing an increased effect. Here are some

fascinating facts. Fuel for a diesel truck in the U.S. contains 500

parts per million sulfur, and will soon be regulated down to 15 parts

per million. Hurrah. But the bunker fuel that the cargo ships burn

contains up to 40,000 parts per million sulfur. Boo.

NOx is more chemical shorthand. It stands for nitrous and nitric

oxide. I’m laughing already. Get it? Laughing gas is nitrous oxide.

OK, too obscure. Actually it stands for nitric oxide and nitrogen

dioxide, but what’s in a name? Smog by any other name would smell as

foul. Another fact, tossed in at random, 14% of all global nitrogen

oxide emissions comes from cargo ships.

So why are these chemicals bad? They are a major component of

smog. In the presence of sunlight, they produce ozone in the lower

atmosphere, where we don’t want it. Ozone is highly toxic to lungs.

The last item on the EPA’s list was PM. Vic reminded me that PM in

England stands for prime minister, but in our columns it stands for

particulate matter. Oh, right, we wrote about that a few months ago.

Those microscopic PM10 particles cause lung damage. They’re like

roaches in a roach motel. They check in, but they don’t check out.

Once those tiny dirt and hydrocarbon particles lodge in our lungs,

they stay there and cause damage over time. That starlit walk on the

beach was feeling less romantic by the minute.

So we learned that, in addition to the economic cost, there is a

high environmental cost to the dock strike. The short-term solution

to the increased smog production from the idling ships is to solve

the dock strike. But getting the ships moving again merely moves the

problem offshore. A longer-term solution is called for.

Developing alternative fuels for the cargo ships would eliminate

the need for polluting low-grade diesel fuel. More efficient engines

would reduce emissions from the ships. Finding alternate sources of

propulsion would go a long way toward reducing the effect of diesel

fuels on the air of this planet and on the lungs of the people who

live on it, especially those of us who live along the coast.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.