Appellate Court Rules Port of LA Must Obey Environmental Law or Risk Closure of Largest Terminal

LOS ANGELES – After decades of violating state environmental law to benefit its largest shipping customer, the Port of Los Angeles must take long-overdue measures to protect the health and well-being of residents and workers from diesel exhaust and other air pollutants, the California Court of Appeal has ruled. 

The decision will require the Port to implement measures to protect air quality while completing a court-ordered environmental review. Litigation over the Port’s violations began more than two decades ago when the Port authorized construction and operation of the China Shipping terminal without preparing an environmental review of the project. This violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s bedrock environmental law.  

“The Port has been violating the law and prioritizing profits over people for over two decades now,” said Margaret Hsieh, a senior attorney at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “The Court’s opinion makes clear that this must come to an end. Rather than continuing to defy the law and delay implementing much-needed pollution-control measures, the Port should take leadership in innovating and implementing clean technologies.” 

A coalition of community and environmental justice groups first brought litigation in 2001 to enforce CEQA and address toxic air pollution from shipping and cargo-handling activities at the massive China Shipping terminal in San Pedro, which sits just a few hundred yards from homes, playgrounds, parks, and schools. Although plaintiffs prevailed in the initial litigation, the Port failed to fix its legal violations and, in fact, secretly waived pollution-control requirements for China Shipping. When news of the secret waivers became public in 2015, the Port began an updated environmental review, which it finally completed in 2019. 

The 2019 review was the subject of this current lawsuit, brought by the San Pedro and Peninsula Homeowners Coalition, San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners United, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Coalition for Clean Air, and NRDC. These community and environmental groups objected to the review, claiming that the Port failed to follow state law and protect public health.   

In 2022, the trial court found that the Port was in “profound violation of CEQA.” Nonetheless, the trial court allowed the terminal to continue operating without required pollution-cutting measures while the Port again updated its environmental review under CEQA. The appeals court decision, handed down late last week, reverses that decision.  

“We are living in a Diesel Death Zone,” said Peter Warren, of San Pedro and Peninsula Homeowners Coalition. “Finally, after decades of public outrage, our communities are offered the promise of relief from the pollution that has contributed to a public-health failure resulting in chronic illness, school and work absences, hospitalizations, emergency room visits and death. We will remain vigilant until the pollution stops.” 

The appellate court decision orders the trial court to fashion a new remedy that requires the Port to comply with the law by adopting and implementing mitigation measures that will protect community residents, workers, and children from pollution.  

“The court decision is a huge step in the right direction,” said Chuck Hart from San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners United. “Now it is the Port’s turn to do the right thing and update their operations.”

The decision from the three-judge panel reads, “Certainly, a ‘remedy’ that permits Terminal operations to continue in the absence of the implementation and enforcement” of pollution-cutting measures that the Port already found feasible “is no real remedy at all” and “seems to be at odds with one of the primary purposes of CEQA,” which is to “prevent significant, avoidable damage to the environment by requiring changes in projects through the use of alternatives or mitigation measures.” That flawed remedy, the panel continued, “permits the Port to violate CEQA without any real consequence.” 

“No one is above the law—not the Port of Los Angeles and not a wealthy international shipping company,” said Joe Lyou, President of the Coalition for Clean Air. “Everyone has a right to breathe clean air and our port communities have been robbed of that for decades.” 

If no party petitions for rehearing or review of the appellate court decision, the case will go back to the trial court for that court to “exercise its discretion to remedy the CEQA violations.” 

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law, and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health, and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd). Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.

Coalition for Clean Air’s mission is to protect public health, improve air quality, and prevent climate change.