Recommendation to respectfully request City Council to: (1) receive supporting documentation into the record and conduct a public hearing on two appeals of the Board of Harbor Commissioners' certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the MCC Cement Facility Modification Project filed pursuant to Long Beach Municipal Code Section 21.21.507 by the Coalition for a Safe Environment, et al. and Earthjustice on behalf of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Coalition for a Safe Environment; and (2) adopt resolution denying the appeals and upholding the Board of Harbor Commissioners' certification of the Final EIR for the Project.
Can I have, um. Would you please stand and raise your right hand to if you plan to testify or speak to this hearing? Please stand. Raise your right hand. Do each of you solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the course now in pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Thank you. Hearing Item number one Report from Harbor Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record and conduct a public hearing on two appeals of the Board of Harbor Commissioners. Certification of the final IIR for the MTC Cement Facility Modification Project filed pursuant to Lomita Municipal Code by the Coalition for a Safe Environment and Earthjustice, an adopt resolution denying the appeals and upholding the Board of Commissioners certification of the final air. Thank you, Madam Clerk. If I may ask Mr. Mes. To make Vice Mayor Lowenthal a members of the City Council. As the clerk said, this hearing involves an appeal of a determination by the Board. Of Harbor Commissioners. To certify an environmental impact or port for a project for a port tenant who operates a cement import facility on Pier F in our port. As you know, the Board of Harbor Commissioners has jurisdiction over project approvals for all projects in the port district and pursuant to the city charter, they also act as the lead agency for sequel purposes when processing project applications. And they typically are the body that would certify URS or negative declarations or other environmental documents for all projects that are taking place in the port. However, under our municipal code, if a non-elected decision making body, such as the Board of Harbor Commissioners, certifies an environmental document, whether it be an environmental impact report or a negative declaration, a party that feels that they are aggrieved by that determination has the right to appeal the determination of the lead agency, the harbor board, to the elected decision making body. Who are you folks? The City Council. So that's why we are here tonight. It's important to point out before we move forward that unlike Appeals Planning Commission decisions which you deal with more often, that the Council's only jurisdiction in this case involves the secure or the environmental determination and not the underlying determination regarding the project approvals or the appropriateness of the project. That's solely within the jurisdiction of the Board of Harbor Commissioners. And since we don't have a lot of these appeals come before the city council, I like to go over the process that we follow tonight and all of the parties involved in this, both port staff, the project applicant and the appellants have previously been advised of this process. So we start off with the harbor department staff will provide a brief staff report on the project and the status of it. The appellants will then present the merits of their appeals. The project applicant that is NCC and the harbor department will then respond to the appeals. The appellants will then have an opportunity, if they wish and feel it necessary, to submit a brief rebuttal to any of the points that were brought up by the applicant and city staff. Because this is a complicated situation, we've allocated time slots for the appeals and what we've advised all the parties is that the appellants collectively will have 30 minutes to present their appeals and they can divide their time as they choose between the main presentation and their rebuttal time, and they can allocate their time as between the individual appellants. And I assume that they have already determined how they're going to make those allocations. The harbor department and the applicant, M.C., will likewise have 30 minutes to respond to the appeals, and they too can divide their time between them as they so choose. Again to mention the scope of the appeal. The Board of Harbor Commissioners has filed a final decision making authority over the project for which the final year was certified . Council's responsibility in this case is to determine whether or not sequel was properly complied with. But council does not have authority to either approve or reject or modify the project itself, as laid out in the memo that was provided to council. Basically, at the conclusion of this hearing, there are two paths that the Council could follow. They can choose to deny the appeals and adopt the resolution that's been presented for your consideration, which would essentially affirm the Board of Commissioners determination in regard to the air. Or. The Council could vote to grant one or both of the appeals. And direct the harbor department to proceed with appropriate school review or additional review before the harbor department then reconsiders the project approvals themselves. And with that, unless there's any questions about the procedure, I turn it over to harbor staff to start with the report. Thank you, Mr. Mayes. If I could have Mr. Langer up, who's the Chief Executive Officer of the port. Start the presentation and also introduce the staff that will be following him. Yes. Mayor Garcia and council members. With me tonight are three of our commissioners, President Drummond, Vice President Dines and Tracy Agus. You along with several members of our staff and we are before you this evening to confirm and defend the Environmental Impact Report that was certified by our Board of Harbor Commissioners for the MSC Cement Facility Modification Project. And at this point, I would like to introduce Heather Tom Lee, our Director of Environmental Planning. And with her is our managing director of Planning and Environmental Affairs, Rick Cameron, who will present the Harbor Department's agenda item. Thank you, John. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I'd also like to introduce Barbara McTighe, who's seated to my right. Barbara is one of our in-house port attorneys, and between the two of us will respond to any legal questions that you might have separate in apart from the staff presentations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Honorable Mayor Garcia, members of the city council. As John indicated, the harbor departments before you this evening to respond to two appeals that have been filed against the Environmental Impact Report for the M.S. Sea Cement Facility Modification Project that was recently certified by the Board of Harbor Commissioners on May 11th, 2015. Prior to responding to the appeals, we would like to present a brief staff report describing the MSC Cement Facility Modification Project and the secret process. The proposed project is located at AMC's existing cement import facility at 1150 Pier F Avenue in the Port of Long Beach. The facility is currently permitted to receive bulk cement by ship stores, the product in a warehouse and loading silos and loads the product onto customer trucks for delivery to local and regional concrete batch plants. The existing facility is permitted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or UMD. The permit includes throughput limits for ship unloading at 8.76 million metric tons per year and truck loading at 3.45 million metric tonnes per year. The proposed project would not modify the permitted unloading and loading limits. The existing AQ EMD permit includes a requirement that all vessels use shoreside power instead of their auxiliary engines while at berth. However, not all vessels that call it the facility are able to use shore power the entire time during unloading operations. The cranes onboard the ship are used to lift a payload or into the vessel's. Hold. To remove the last portion of cement. The high electrical load needed to operate the ship's cranes exceeds the amount of power that can be supplied by the shore power system. In addition, there's a need for additional storage capacity to minimize inefficiencies due to irregular ship deliveries and fluctuations in cement demand since cement deliveries to the facility are ordered months in advance. Changes in the demand for cement can occur after the order has been placed. There have been periods where the warehouse was full and ships calling it the facility could not unload upon arrival, and the vessels had to wait at birth or at anchor until sufficient warehouse capacity was available for the ship to offload the entire ship's load. Accordingly, AMC proposed a project to meet the following objectives to upgrade the existing facilities, to improve operational efficiencies and provide 40,000 metric tonnes of additional storage capacity to meet the future cement demand in the Los Angeles region. To install an emissions and mission control system called the docks. To reduce at birth nitrogen oxide emissions from ships auxiliary generator engines when vessels are not using shore power. And to modify the HQ and permit for bulk cement ship unloading, which currently requires shore power for all ships, and to instead allow either the use of shore power or treating at berth emissions from the ships using a dockside catalytic control system or docks. The project would include the following modifications to the existing cement import facility installing the docks, which is a movable at birth emission control system consisting of a crane arm and capture hood or bonnet. And this is part of the project, not a mitigation measure or a project alternative. Constructing additional storage consisting of four 10,000 metric ton, direct loading, concrete cement silos and two new truck lanes beneath the silos, upgrading the ship, cement, unloading equipment and other landside structures. The existing cement and loader would be upgraded and a new cement and loader would be installed. And the dock dockside crane rail for the unloading will be extended and the wharf structure and back lands will be reinforced. Based on a capacity study. The maximum throughput for the facility that the facility could accommodate after the modifications is approximately 4.2 million metric tons of cement. 99 vessel cost per year and one 166,400 annual truck trips. The secret process was initiated when MK filed a harbor development permit application with the Harbor Department for the Facility Modification Project, and our Environmental Impact Report was prepared for the project under SEQUA. The impacts that were identified in the air are significant and unavoidable, even after mitigation were applied to air quality, global climate change and biological resources. First for air quality project and cumulative operational air emissions and cumulative construction, air emissions would exceed the AQI thresholds. Mitigation measures include the modernization of the truck fleet, use of a diesel particulate filter for the at birth emission control system. In a demonstration project and use of Tier four construction equipment. In addition, mitigation measures were also added in the final IIR in response to comments by the public, which included participation in the demonstration and testing of the Advanced Maritime Emission Control System or AMAX and periodic technology reviews to investigate new emission reduction technologies, including zero emission cement delivery trucks and cement handling equipment. For global climate change. The total annualized greenhouse gas emissions generated from the proposed construction and operation would be above the A2 and significance threshold. Mitigation measures include the installation of solar panels, energy efficient lighting, energy audits and contribution to the port's greenhouse gas mitigation grant program for biological resources. Distribution to biological communities on a cumulative impact level in regard to invasive species and offshore whale strikes. The project includes an environmental control measure for all ships calling at the MTC facility to comply with the port's vessel speed reduction program of 12 knots from 40 nautical miles. All feasible mitigation measures were applied to the project and were adopted by the Board of Harbor Commissioners as a part of the Project Mitigation, Monitoring and Reporting Program . The final air was certified by the Board of Harbor Commissioners at a public hearing held on May 11th, 2015. As a part of their approvals, the Harbor Commission found the air to be in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, or SICA, and approved the proposed project. Two appeals were filed to the Long Beach City Council on May 26, 2015, by Earthjustice on behalf of ACR, Communities for Environmental Justice and Coalition for a Safe Environment, and also by Coalition for a Safe Environment, representing several additional parties and considering the merits of the filed appeals, the City Council is tasked with determining if the Harbor Department certification of the final air is in compliance with the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. This concludes the Harbor Department staff report. Thank you. And Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I wanted to apologize. I addressed the mayor. I didn't realize he was out of the room. And I apologize for not recognizing your chair. Thank you. I appreciate that. Is that it for the ports presentation at this time? It is. Okay. Thank you. If I might call up the appellants. You have 30 minutes total. For your presentation. How many of you will be speaking? Just two of you. Okay. And you'll utilize the entire time? No, actually, I think I will spend 10 minutes and then see the mike to Jesse Sean minutes, and then we'll try to save ten for rebuttal. Sure. Um, so I think I see you can hear me. Okay. I'm just going to open up. Ready? Super. Okay. So, good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Council members and Vice Mayor Lowenthal for your time. My name is Tamara Zaken. I'm an attorney with Earthjustice, and I'm here on behalf of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Coalition for a Safe Environment. I want to thank you for your time on an issue that is very important to my clients. I've described how I'm going to spend the time, and I just want to start by explaining that my clients are grassroots organizations based here in the harbor area, based in Long Beach and Commerce East L.A. They are the port's neighbors and they represent and have been advocating on behalf of the communities that are most disproportionately impacted by the in particular, the air pollution impacts of the port. And they have been fighting hard to move the needle forward as far as getting controls in place to to improve air quality in the port region and in the communities that they that they live in. The Council is familiar with the air pollution issues I'm talking about. And now I want to stop here and say that the council has done over the last four years a really good job of starting to address and deal with the air pollution issues that we we face. And the port as well and the companies that have do business at the port have been doing a good job of addressing these air pollution issues. But I think we all can see, just from looking at today's air quality, that that our job is not done. And still today, the air that we breathe is not safe. And and that's really why we're here today, because we're concerned about adding a project to already an unsustainable air quality situation that has significant impacts and disproportionately impacts the ports, community and neighborhoods. Um. The question before the council is whether Square has been complied with here and the appeal that has been brought. It challenges the Square view onto on to planes, which I will address soon. But before I talk about Secure, I just want to point out the broad scale human health hazards that are associated with these emissions. And I think we lose. We talk about Zika and we have a big document and it's technical, but I think we lose sight of what we're what we're dealing with on a human health hazard level. And one of the biggest air pollutants we're concerned with is is NOx is what they're called. This is nitrogen oxide. And it's emitted by ships coming into the port and trucks going in and out. And just just for a sense of what kind of impacts we're dealing with. You spend just a few hours, 3 hours in low levels of NOx, and you are already vulnerable to two chronic respiratory issues. And this is especially true for our children who are vulnerable populations, are pregnant mothers, our grandmothers. And it's undisputed that the project we're dealing with will be adding to to a baseline already of unsustainable NOx levels in our communities. A few points about the project itself. I think the staff report does a good job of summarizing it, so I'm just going to make a few short points. First, the terminal has been idle since 2010, and even before that it was not very active. So the port has issued a lease with Mitsubishi in 2022 and for the first four years of the lease, the facility was active. In 2006, activity went down and then in 2010, activity stopped entirely. The other point I want to make is we have obviously a very large port in Long Beach, but this project, but a piece of it is a very large project and the project is going to add 166,000 truck trips a year to the communities. The trucks are going to be going in and out 166,400 truck visits a year as a result of this project. And again, we're talking about ships and trucks being the overwhelming majority of the daily emissions at issue. So we'll hear about Secord. That's the jurisdiction you have to review. We've got an unsustainable, unhealthy air basin and then we have a project we're adding now that has been identified as adding to that significant levels of air quality emission impacts. And the job of Sequa is three things to study the impacts, identify the impacts. So we know the public knows what those impacts are, identify mitigation measures that will reduce the impacts. And this is really important. The mitigation measures are why my clients are here. This is where the rubber hits the road. We identify what we're dealing with and we don't want to put the burden on the public of having to shoulder the pollution issues. So we address them with mitigation measures to bring the pollution levels down. The third piece of the skill requirement is identifying alternatives. That's not at issue here. We're concerned with have we identified the impacts properly and have we mitigated sufficiently to protect the public, to protect our disproportionately impacted communities? First I'm going to talk about the impacts and get a little bit technical, but I mean, try and keep it simple. We have a baseline issue. The way we measure impacts is using a measuring stick called the baseline. It's the it's the way that we assess what a new project will add. And if you inflate a baseline, if you pick a level of activity as a baseline that's too high. Then what you're identifying is impacts to mitigate for the public benefit becomes smaller and you end up mitigating less and putting more burdens on the public. So it's very important that the baseline is accurate. And what we have here is a baseline chosen in the air that is almost a decade old, and the baseline is defined as being a realistic capture of the of the existing activities at the terminal. And as I describe, the terminal is inactive. So we have a baseline from 2006 at a time when the activity was at its highest peak. And it's creating an inflated level of of baseline impacts against which we're measuring now the project and what we're mitigating for the public as a result is something smaller. So one of the reasons why the council should send the air back is because the baseline is inaccurate. We need to address real conditions on the ground and if you look at the length of the lease, the real conditions have been for the majority of the lease, something much less than what happened in 2006. That's not a current representation of the terminals activities. We also are concerned that the impacts aren't addressed because the truck, the trucks that we're talking about are distributing cement across the region and they're going at least 30 miles out. If you look at the air, it's identified as up to 30 miles. But if other parts of the air, well, assess that or state that the the truck travel is going as far as the southwestern U.S. But the way the air identifies the impacts from the trucks is by seizing the analysis at three miles. So the minute the trucks get out to three miles, we stop our analysis. Any impacts beyond three miles are not in the air. We're not those things. The emissions resulting from outside three miles are falling again on the public, on the disproportionately impacted communities. Those impacts are not being mitigated. And again, that alone is a reason to send this project air back so that we can again capture the impacts of the truck emissions from hundreds of thousands of truck trips that this project will put on to onto the roads. And then I think before I before I conclude I think the are again the rubber hits the road when we talk about mitigation discussion the mitigation impacts for the mitigation measures for our impacts. We've got ship impacts and we've got truck impacts, all creating air emissions that are adding to unhealthy air that's not safe to breathe. And what are we going to do? This is the juncture now with this document. What are we going to do to make sure we're reducing our impacts to the maximum extent feasible to protect the public? And we we have identified in our comments ways in which the mitigation falls short. Again, these are reasons why the port should return to the air and reassess first. Ship controls the ships. What Mitsubishi or Masisi has committed to in its mitigation for ship emissions has been. Again, we see a theme. What they did in 2006, ten years ago. And we all know that in the last ten years we've seen technology develop. And Mitsubishi itself, in its opposition to our our appeal, admitted that the 2006 mitigation measure this is for shoreside powering where we are powering ships through through onshore terminal electricity is that level from 2006 could actually be raised to a higher level to 80% . And that's something that's not disclosed in the actual FBAR, the obligation under seaQuest to disclose that publicly. But we only see that in their reply brief to our appeal that there's higher levels of mitigation we can do on ship emissions. Those things are not in the air. There's going to there's a conversation about additional mitigation we can do for ships. I'm not going to address it. But there's a representative here from Amex, which is a technology that also can help mitigate ship emissions. And I'm going to defer to that representative to discuss that technology and why the absence of that technologies discussion in the air is is is problematic that we could do more by considering broader technologies. We have a truck fleet, too. I've talked about the truck fleet that's going to be going out tens of miles, hundreds of miles out. We don't get that analysis in the air. We don't understand those impacts. So already we don't know what exactly were mitigating because the analysis is limited. But even with respect to what we do know, even with respect to a three mile radius, there's a mitigation measure called modernizing the truck fleet, which the staff report described. But all the modernization does is bring cement trucks, and we've all seen them on the roads up to basic standards of law, the minimum standards. And some if you if you read the mitigation measure, it has some options in it. But at the bottom, the bottom line is that mitigation requires as much as you can do feasibly to protect the public. And what we have are mitigation standards that just mirror the minimum standards of law. And again, without getting technical, we want to we want to force the port to go back and comply with secure by disclosing. Disclosing the the truck mitigation measures that are still available. I think I'm going to let Jessie speak. I will. And rebuttal, perhaps address some additional issues. But I think, again, you know, we've got impacted communities and we want public disclosure. We're dealing with historic data. We can do more and we should do more. These are communities that have been burdened for a long time, and this is the juncture in which we need to address the issues of our impacts and and bring them under control. And I will now see them, I think. Good evening, Mayor. Council members and members of the audience. My name is Jessie Marquez. I am the founder and executive director of the Coalition for a Safe Environment. But let's first have an understanding of my background. So, you know, when I speak what type of authority I have, I have held. I worked in the manufacturing industry for approximately 20 years. I've been a test technician, a manufacturer, engineer, quality engineer, test lab manager, production manager, as well as division auditor. I worked in commercial electronics, aerospace and military and held the position of secret clearance. Issues I brought up was because of my concern is the project including all the best design features. Are the technologies they using the best that are available today? Are they mitigating all the types of impacts that their facility will be doing? And my answer conclusion was no. I am one of the foremost authorities for supporting alternative technologies and new technologies. But what happens is that when I read the information on the docks, it raises an immediate red flag. But Doc's technology has never been built before. It doesn't exist anywhere on the planet. The company that NCC contracted has never built a docks, has never built any ship emissions capture system, has never built any ship emissions treatment system. They have no experience in ship emissions capture or treatment technologies whatsoever. When I looked at the drawing that they presented on their technology. I recognized it because here at the Port of Long Beach is a company. That has the Amex technology, the advanced maritime emissions ship control technology. They have ten years experience. They are the first company to ever design and build a ship emissions capture treatment system. They have five U.S. patents. I did a patent search. There is no patent for the docs or a patent pending. But the Amex does have five and I've read those five. And looking at the drawing by the manufacturer of the docs, they are now violating all those patents. Now, maxi attorneys have told you that the patent issue should not be a concern of yours. It has no relevance whatsoever. But you, city council members and the Board of Commissioners do have a responsibility in doing due diligence, because that due diligence would have disclosed that there is no experience on this. They've made a statement about this system being there at FCC. No, all we have is parts sitting on a dock. It's never been configured before. They haven't even submitted a test protocol for CARB to approve. Whereas if we look at the AMOC system, they have ten years experience. They've been at the Port of Long Beach for seven years and this is what got me, because what's not disclosed in the air or in any presentation is the fact that they've been at the Port of Long Beach for seven years. They have tested their technology and over 70 ships, they have tested their technology on 34 bulk loading ships, the same type that would be carrying cement. They have never had a failure. You'll see that the argument was the footprint. Well, the Amex has five different designs that I've seen. And Mitsubishi never asked them could they build a system on a wheeled vehicle, which they can do? Mitsubishi never asked them. Could they have a smaller footprint equal to or smaller than the dock system, which they are fully capable of doing? So my concern is that when you do not investigate things, you do not contact the manufacturers for current information. You don't. Do not know what exist. But here we have a proven technology that exists already today. They want to spend three years testing docs and it may not still work at the end. And that's not acceptable when we have a technology that's available today. Changing to trucks in the air. It states that there were no zero emission trucks that they could use for this facility. In a document that was handed to you today or should have been represent to you today, is that we had already disclosed that there were numerous zero emission truck manufacturers that existed. I provided information on four of those zero emission truck manufacturers that have zero emission trucks up and running right now since the facility MTC will be built in two or three years. Every one of those would be available in two or three years. In addition to that, there are another four manufacturers of near zero emission trucks. And you can go right now to Mac, to Volvo, Freightliner, and pick one up right now. Zero emissions. And here's your emissions, which are your natural gas LNG types. Yet the air says they don't exist. Therefore, they weren't even considered. We have a problem with that. So there is technology. They also use a top loader. They said they could not find a top loader to help scrape the bottom of the holes in the insides of the ships. I found one. That's the zero emissions. So the issue is who is doing the proper due diligence? It is not we the public's job to be doing their job. If I go into the net and find forged emission truck manufacturers for news of your truck manufacturers and a tractor, then they should be able to do the same thing. But see, they never contacted any of these manufacturers to find out what the current status is. And even if it's not available today, they can be ordered. And built to order to any manufacturer specifications. And that's why these are viable technologies that need should be included in the year. We had also brought out that, you know, we were concerned about the construction of the facility. We all know about, you know, sustainability being part of our laws. This provides an opportunity where some of these sustainable technologies are also emission prevention technologies. So they need to be included. And I provided some information in our public comments, both draft and final, and in this document that shows what things are feasible off the shelf and can be done in terms of green construction. Solar energy is available. Building materials, such as even simple things like poles for light can be using recycled, you know, rubber and plastics, recycled carbon and fiberglass. So there are numerous more opportunities that would reduce emissions from that. A concern, too, that was brought up by one of our members that signed on with us was regarding the cement itself. We had asked for disclosure of the origin of the cement. And what type of assurances that we would have that this foreign imported cement would not have any toxic chemicals, toxic substances, hazardous materials, or have natural uranium radiation, for example. We were not provided any assurances that, you know, what are they going to do to make sure that does not happen? They also mentioned in the air that they are also maybe using cement like materials which might be furnace, slag, porcelains and fly ash. Again, these elements can also be toxic, can be hazardous and can be radioactive. What protects the public. That's what any air is supposed to do, is disclose in full detail these types of things. They also talk about how they comply to the Clean Air Action Plan, how they comply to the green port policy. The only thing they did in that regard is that they referenced the things that they did comply to. They did not list the things that they did not comply to. And those are some of the things that we listed and that we brought up that were not addressed, saying that you comply to one thing. At the same time, not complying to others is not acceptable. And I thank you for this time. Thank you very much. So we're going to stop the clock and leave it at 915, or are they? So that'll be the remaining amount of time. If the appellant wants to do a rebuttal that they can use for the time. Okay, so let's go ahead and get the clock back started for 30 minutes and our next presentation will be from the port. I will be inclusive with the applicant comments and if they like to take up to 20 minutes divided how they would like and if they want to save than ten more minutes for any sort of rebuttal or you can take 25 minutes and say 5 minutes for any kind of rebuttal, it's really up to up to the port. Okay. What's the what do you think you're going to take as far as your. I didn't think we had. Um. We didn't talk about that with Mitsubishi. We we'd like to reserve 5 minutes at the end for rebuttal. Okay. So then you have 25 minutes. We'll set the clock at 30. And when you start reaching those last 5 minutes, the clerk will let you know. And you may want to conclude at that time. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. In response to the issues raised by the appellants, the harbor department will be providing our presentation first, followed by Mitsubishi. The Harvard Department has prepared detailed, written responses to the grounds for the appeals, and those have been included in the staff report. Several issues raised by the two Apollo letters were beyond the scope of the City Council's review in this appeal hearing. While the appellants may be raising important issues for debate, the issues in front of city council tonight is a narrow one. Did the E.R. prepared by the Harbor Department comply with Sequel? Tonight, I'll present a summary of the key issues related to the Harbor Department's compliance with Secure. An argument raised by the appellants is that the final year did not use the correct baseline. The IIR utilize 26 as the baseline year because it was the last full year of normal operations before the economic downturn in 2011. Operations at the facility were in a temporary hiatus. Allows lead agencies to recognize that there will be fluctuations in operation levels over time due to economic and other factors, and to set an appropriate baseline that takes these fluctuations into account using 2011 as the baseline when there was zero activity at the site would be misleading, ignoring the fact that the fully permitted, fully entitled cement import facility already exists because the existing MDC facility has valid operating permits and already has undergone comprehensive environmental review under SEQUA. At any time they could have operated the existing facility at its maximum capacity permitted under its aq m d permit. The ER could have used the AQ and permitted capacity for the facility as the baseline. However, to be conservative, the port determined that the most appropriate way to provide meaningful information to the public and the decision makers would be to use the actual activity levels from the facility. In 2006, prior to the economic downturn, which was much less than the AQ d permitted limit. Therefore the baseline used in the ER fully complies with sequa. Another argument raised was that that all feasible mitigation measures were not imposed. First, the appellants argued that the Amex technology should have been required. However, under secure Amex is not a feasible mitigation measure or an alternative to Mtc's dock system. MTC proposed the docks as an essential part of their project to treat emissions from vessels when shore power could not be used. Square requires the lead agency to evaluate the project as submitted by the applicant and to identify appropriate alternatives and feasible mitigation. Although the AMEX is a promising technology undergoing demonstration testing, it's not currently approved and available for use. There's one Amex prototype unit that recently underwent testing for container ships and is awaiting approval from the California Air Resources Board to be used as an alternative to shore power for container ships specifically. The Amex will also need to undergo the required demonstration and testing for dry bulk vessels and go through the card process to become available as an approved and commercialized system before it can be considered feasible under sequa for the use on bulk vessels that call at the MSC facility. Therefore, Amex cannot currently be relied upon as a feasible mitigation measure or an alternative under sequa. However, in the in response to the comments received, a mitigation measure was added to the final IIR that requires MCP to participate in the demonstration of the Amex. In addition, the docks will also need to demonstrate the use of a diesel particulate filter for reducing particulate emissions. Further, FCC will also be required to work with the port through a periodic technology review process to monitor development of the various technologies that are appropriate for their operation and integrate them over time to continue to address emissions impacts. And finally, the Harbor Commission approved a motion after certification of the document, which went beyond SICA to direct staff during any lease negotiations with AMC to include the use of best available technology to capture ship emissions. Second, the opponents have argued for the use of zero emission trucks, while zero emission technologies are promising. There are currently no zero emission technologies readily available in the marketplace to replace the types of cement delivery trucks used at the facility. Zero emission trucks remain in the testing phase, with a current focus on demonstration of prototype trucks for container drainage and are not currently feasible for cement delivery in connection with the MKC terminal. Because the development and testing of many of these technologies are still in the early stages, the timeline for commercial viability is speculative at this time. Through the cap and the Clean Trucks program. The port has worked consistently over the last decade to reduce emissions from trucks serving the San Pedro Bay ports. In connection with this project, the port has gone a step further by imposing a mitigation measure that requires MTC to go above and beyond current requirements. At a minimum, the trucks must be in compliance with the Clean Trucks Program and State Drage truck regulation. But 90% of the trucks calling it the MTC facility must go further and maintain engines that are no more than five years old or equivalent. In addition, MTC must participate in periodic technology reviews every five years over the duration of their lease. That expressly includes zero emission and near zero emission technologies for cement delivery trucks for incorporation into their operations when they become feasible. The port remains committed to supporting development of zero emission truck technologies through our Our Technology Advancement Program. And we've invested significant funding to support and expedite their development. We will continue to partner with other agencies in funding, development, developing and demonstrating zero emission truck technology so they can become a feasible option in the coming years. And this will be a focus in our update to the Cleaner Action Plan, which has recently been initiated. In addition, an additional issue raised by the appellants is the amount of funding contribution to the greenhouse gas mitigation program consistent with the port's previous year. That Air for Mitsubishi requires a contribution of $15 per metric tonne of all CO2 equivalent emissions from the baseline to the emissions peak. And the payment must be made upfront in advance of the peak year. The calculation rate is based upon the AQ MDS Rule 2702 and is consistent with working with the more and more conservative than the state's cap and trade calculation. Therefore, this mitigation was applied consistently and appropriately. Further, NCC is required to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by reducing their onsite energy demand through installation of solar panels, energy efficient lighting and conducting energy audits. The opponents have argued that the scope of the analysis in the final year is not fully compliant with SICO in regards to traffic. A traffic impact study was performed as part of the EMR and no significant traffic impacts around the proposed project were determined. The appellants argue that traffic and air analysis only consider the impacts within the three miles of the project. However, that's not correct. The scope of the traffic analysis was designed to evaluate all intersections and roads that could be significantly impacted by traffic from the project. The traffic distribution for those intersections and along those roads reflects a review of previous NCC customers the location of known ready mix plants in the region, the potential market area for cement and probable travel routes of these customer trucks to and from the NCC facility. The traffic study methodology used was consistent with city of long beaches, traffic study policies and Metro's 2010 congestion management program, including and included examining locations near the project site and continuing out from there. And if no significant impacts are identified, no further analysis is needed because the number of traffic trips at any particular location decreases with distance from the project site as traffic disperses through the regional network impacts at locations more distant from the one studied in detail for the project, which are even less of an impact from project related trips. In this case, no significant impacts were identified at any intersection or in any road or freeway segments. Including the I7 ten. Although the traffic analysis was carried out to approximately three miles from the project site, that scope was based on the results of the analysis and was not selected arbitrarily. Further, and I think this is important to emphasize, the air impacts from the project were studied to the first point of rest or the base and boundary and were not limited to three miles. The air analysis for truck emissions specifically were estimated using a roundtrip distance of 60 miles based upon the anticipated destinations. Again. While the appellants are raising important issues about the use of advanced clean technologies, these are issues that the court is very engaged in with our Technology Advancement Program , and that will be addressing in our upcoming update to the Clean Air Action Plan. But the issue in front of the city council tonight is narrow regarding specifically the application of Sequoia for this project. The Board of Harbor Commissioners serves as the trustees over the portions of the Tidelands that comprise the port. And the Board's decisions regarding what activities may occur on port property are made after careful consideration and deliberation, and the Board has determined that the ER was prepared in compliance with CEQA. Tonight, the Harbor Department respectfully request that the City Council receive the supporting documentation into the record and adopt a resolution denying the two appeals and upholding the Board of Harbor Commissioners certification of the final IIR in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act. And this concludes the Harbor Department's presentation for this time. Mitsubishi will be providing their presentation. Please continue. Good evening. My name is Bud Biggs, and I'm the project manager for Mitsubishi Cement on this project. Sorry. I'd like to thank the mayor. And the city council for listening to. Our comments tonight. I'd like to. Thank the port staff. For all their hard work on. This project and for the excellent job for responding to the applicants. I'd just like to state that. Shore power is definitely our preferred method of controlling emissions. And although the air says 66%, we plan to cold iron. Absolutely as much as we possibly can. Oh, yeah. One other one other comment I'd like to make is that we do have a manufacturing plant in Lucerne Valley in San Bernardino, and that plant ships them out to California, Nevada and Arizona. The facility here in Long Beach is very local and. Almost all of that cement goes into the L.A. Basin and some to San Diego. Thank you very much for listening to us tonight. I have all of our consultants and experts here tonight, and I'll reserve the rest of the time for them to do their rebuttal or. Whatever I'd like to say. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Jocelyn Thompson of Alston and Bird. I am assisting Mitsubishi Cement on the environmental permitting and the wood compliance in particular. And joining me today at the podium is Marcia Braverman from Environmental Audit. And I need technical consultant and has been working with with Mitsubishi on this project as well as doing the air permitting at the Air District. So we're going to try to cover an awful lot of territory in a very short period of time. It's very important, as the final decision makers here this evening that the city council appreciate that it's very hard to get into the detail in this forum, but there is a vast amount of detail that has been provided to you. And I know that, you know, the board's been diligent or the council has been diligent in exploring that and trying to master the topics. So I'm going to hit just a couple of the points, and then I'm going to turn it over to our technical expert, Ms.. Braverman, to speak to some of the issues as well. First SEC baseline. Appellant's counsel was, I think, good in her explanation that it's important to have a firm understanding of the starting point for Square Review. And then you have to ask, how is the project going to change the world? What is the world going to look like afterwards? What are the consequences of launching down this path? But I think she presented only half the law on baseline. There is another whole body of law that actually prohibits an agency from looking again at environmental impacts that have already been evaluated. And that's the situation that we have here. We have an existing terminal that has been through Complete Square Review on multiple occasions in the past. So Scala says the starting point is supposed to be the fully permitted, already evaluated facility that Ms.. Thomas described, that, you know, that would be the maximum permitted capacity of the facility and all the truck trips and ship visits that are associated with that. This was a subject of a lot of discussion early on in the review of this project, and the company acquiesced in the port's preference to use actual data from 26. It's true, 26 had more ships and trucks than today, but using 26 data actually deflates the baseline. It gives us a lower starting point, not a higher starting point than the law would allow. And very a lot of the analyzes flow from that. So it's a critical point. The second thing I want to address is raised in the letter that appellants filed today, which asks for recirculation. There is no information that was provided either in the port's filing to you or our filing to you last week. That would trigger recirculation. There's no information that reveals any new significant impact or more substantially severe impacts than what you already have in great detail in the air, including all the responses to comments. The third point I want to hit is cold ironing. Mr. Bigs already said that that is the company's preferred approach. It avoids the emissions associated with the auxiliary engines at birth. It's it's terrific. It can't be achieved 100% of the time. It's important that the board, the council appreciate that Mitsubishi has accomplished an extraordinary thing. They have indeed cold ironed a captive fleet, something that people said we wouldn't be able to do. It has been achieved with not with no modifications to a single ship, which is great because we rarely see a ship a second time, let alone a third or fourth or fifth. We deal with a worldwide fleet that we don't own, we don't control, we cannot modify. And to our knowledge, no one else in the port of Long Beach, the port of LA, any West Coast port or any port anywhere has actually achieved this. So it's an extraordinary accomplishment that your city, your port has already recognized through granting an award to the company for this. So there's been some discussion about should the condition be a minimum, 66% cold ironing or 80% cold ironing? If you look at the 26 data, all the ships, what was achieved in 2006 was 66% cold ironing. If you look at the ships, a smaller group, that was the group that we attempted to cold iron. You come up with the 80% number. But here's the thing. We have data of what we achieved. We do not have evidence that that can be achieved every year because we don't control the ships. There's a lot of evidence that we don't control the ships. We will strive to do the best, and we've done better than anybody else has ever done on this count. And that is terrific. And we think 66% is achievable on a year end, year in, year out basis. 80%, we cannot assure you we can do that because we can't control the ships. I should probably turn it over to you because you've got a lot of points to cover. Thank you. Thank you. If I can actually make this work. Thank you. I'd like to speak a little bit about efficiency. This project, Mitsubishi sees it as an efficiency project is to more efficiently handle material, have it available for trucks, will arrive at the facility and to offload it as quickly as possible from the ships. This project is to help. Prevent what occurred in 26 for our facility. The project the ships are. Are ordered months in advance. If you get behind in unloading the ship, the ships sit at anchor. In 2006 and 2007 combined, more than 7000 hours of anchor time occurred and the hoteling emissions associated that with that occurred. This project is trying to eliminate the need to go to anchor by having a ship show up when this ship at berth is not yet unloaded. By reducing the amount of at anchor time, we can reduce some of the emissions that occurred in 2006. There were 25 tons of SOX emissions, there were 12 tons of NOx emissions and there were one and a quarter tons of PM10 emissions. The shore power system that Mitsubishi installed uses the drydock breaker on the ship. It's because we don't own the ships and the ships are designed elsewhere. We can't control the amount of power that can be put through the drydock breaker. The port discussed this somewhat and as well as Mr. Thomson. So the cold ironing condition is that we've achieved 80%, but we can't necessarily commit to being able to do that all the time. The unloading process includes includes the use of what we call a pay loader. It's a piece of construction equipment to get it into the hold. It has to be lifted with the cranes. And the drydock breakers are not designed to handle enough power to power the cranes on the ship. And that's when the auxiliary system that we had designed would be employed. The. The pay loaders that that Mitsubishi uses are the current tier required, which would be tier four when operations resume. The only equipment that we have been able to locate is a hybrid certified tier four piece of equipment that has a larger engine than the pay loaders that the facility requires. Using Tier four equipment, the proper size for our facility will reduce the emissions over a Tier four hybrid that has a bigger engine. You don't want to overpower your case. Mitsubishi is subject to air district permits and they hold a number of permits, including a permit for unloading and they comply with Rule 43, which has to do with fugitive dust emissions from the facility. The air includes a mitigation measure that outlines the fugitive dust emission controls. Mitsubishi uses. A pneumatic on loader which creates a negative draft into the hold and acts as mission control as well as all of the equipment at the facility that handles the cement, has permits and operates emission control devices . The entire process is done through pneumatic moving material, through pipes. It does not use open conveyors. It does not move material into hold. It moves it out of the hold. So before we get off this slide, I'm going to interrupt Ms.. Braverman, just for a moment to say to translate that into layperson's terms. This is a giant vacuum. It's a giant vacuum. We vacuum out the hold so we're not disturbing it with conveyor belts and all sorts of things. Giant vacuum. It controls its own emissions. The dock system that was designed for Mitsubishi was designed specifically to meet the needs of our air district permits and our project. Its fundamental use is to be secondary to cold irony. It's suited to our facility because it can be relocated as needed because it's on wheels. And it uses proven technology. Emission control technology. For NOx, control is selective catalytic reduction. That technology has been proven in many facilities throughout the basin. And there is nothing unproven about that technology. The. Project. At its inception, the sulfur content in fuel was quite high. And somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.7% on average. Since this project started, the regulations have reduced that number 2.1%. Today, because of that, the availability of being able to do particulate control is much more feasible. And the project has a mitigation measure to put a particulate filter demonstration in which, given the sulfur content, we hope will work . With our diversified fleet. The project. The air found our project to have very localized, significant air quality impacts, primarily for a one hour NOx standard. That the air district has that the federal government actually has. And PM ten and PM 2.5. Those impacts. Were very adequately. Defined by the modeling done by the port that showed that it does not go outside the port and actually stays on Pier Avenue, very local to the facility. The the analysis done in the air is done in a number of ways. There are. Pound threshold a day. There modeling their health risk models. They're all done slightly differently. And by just defining the area of significance, significant impacts. There is no need to go farther out because as Heather said. The farther out you go. The more dispersed the impacts are and the lower they are. There were no impacts out in residents, significant impacts found in residential areas, and it was all very localized to the facility. The. Truck measure is real quick. You have 5 minutes left for your including your rebuttal. So if you want to have 5 minutes for rebuttal, you're can have to wrap up pretty quickly, just so you know that. Right. You put the whole 30 on there. Right. Okay. So please continue. It's up to you guys. So this is our last slide and we were at about 15 seconds to explain it. Okay. Continue. Continue. Sorry. I lost my train of thought. The truck measure was explained by the port that it's an ever renewing five year truck fleet. So it won't be 90% of the trucks will be. Five years. And newer. And so that's been misunderstood in understanding the project. And for us in regards to zero emission trucks. We have yet to find one that has been approved for use to haul the weight load that Mitsubishi uses, which is just about 40 tons. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We are. Of course, available for questions. Thank you. And now we're going to go back to the appellant. The appellant had, I believe it was 9 minutes and. 10 seconds. Okay. So they're able to take a. The remainder of that or what they would like to make any rebuttal. Thank you. Can I ask a procedural question first? Sure thing. I wanted to clarify. I mean, as a parent, my understanding is that we would get the last word, that our rebuttal, which would conclude the presentation portion. And I wanted to. Perhaps the rules are. Let me let me double check on that. Can you give me 1/2? Okay. Okay. I'm going to let the city attorney explain that this piece. Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the city council, the speaker somewhat correct. The memo that was sent out didn't identify a rebuttal period per say for the applicants or city staff. But the but allowing them to rebut is not prejudicial because you have not exceeded the overall 30 minutes that was allocated to each side. And moreover, in these types of situations, it's really since you are hearing this as a new hearing body, it's really incumbent upon the applicant to demonstrate to you that the IIR is sufficient. And so it is appropriate for, in this case, the applicant and the court to have the last 5 minutes, but not to exceed the overall 30. I mean, I think that I would have I would say that I think it is prejudicial not to give the appellant, the public, the communities of concern that have raised this to the fore. The last word, then, I think that there's the time is what it is. And that certainly gives the applicant and the port the time to make their case. But I think that nevertheless, I will do my best to rebut and hopefully, you know, you can keep in your mind, notwithstanding what's what's left of the last 5 minutes in your mind, to the point I'm going to make. So I guess we can thank you. So we have 9 minutes and 10 seconds, I believe, or whatever the last number was. Okay. Thank you. Please go ahead. Okay. So I just wanted to remind everyone why we're here. We're talking about secure. And we're talking about the purpose of we're trying to ensure that what's happened here meets the purpose and legal requirements of secure and. Really the statute is written in in and I and I said this before, but this is the opportunity now for the council to to ask the port and to ask the project applicant to do the best job it possibly can on behalf of your constituents to control pollution and not just to control it within what the law may or may require of it in terms of basic standards, but to do as much as possible and we're talking about a project that has been identified as significantly impacting an already unsustainable air pollution scenario. So we have significant impacts to the job under seek ways to mitigate that down to zero or below significance. And they haven't done that. What we have in this is an admission that they cannot mitigate the significant impacts back down to zero. So what you have is a project that's coming in and that's that is in fact, putting burdens on the public on these especially harbor area communities that have already been disproportionately impacted. So really, in considering whether Square has applied, it's imperative that we do the best possible job. If there's any doubt in your mind whether Square has been done properly here, the law requires that you protect the public. Square is intended to protect the public. And again, we're adding burdens and the project applicant admits in its it cannot remove those burdens down to zero, even though that is the goal of square. So what we're left with is a question of how does the public does the council understand the impacts the way it wants to. Is there a question in your mind about what the impacts are? And and. Because, as I have asserted, we do not understand the impacts. And I address the baseline question in a minute. Is the public taking on more pollution than it even knows it is than has even been disclosed? And does that mean that the project applicant and the port is getting out from under its duty to be responsible for that pollution? Is it shifting the burden which that square requires is on the project applicant over to the public? And that's what we're trying to avoid. So with that said, I think there are some legal arguments about baseline and there's legal arguments about feasibility of mitigation. And I'm not going to to to go into that except to say that there is very clear law in this circumstance. And and I agree that there's also law, as FCC counsel said, about baseline and about already having analyzed project impacts in earlier iterations. But what we have here is not a continual timeline of activity that's been analyzed that we're adding to. What we have here is a complete drop off. And so what the baseline currently is in this FBAR is historic only. And and so that's the concern. Are we are we cherry picking. The impacts, again, to hurt the public. And and that's what's happening here. We're cherry picking the best scenario for the project applicant when what we should be doing is looking at the the scenario for the public and assessing the impacts for the public. And again, the impacts to the public. Asthma, pain when breathing weakened immune systems, inflammation of the lungs, pulmonary disease, cancer, even premature death. We're talking these are real impacts. So I want to keep everyone's mind on on on that when we're talking about air pollution. The. There's a dispute about whether we understand the impacts in the Empire States. And I will quote it The analysis of emissions from proposed truck trips focused on roadway systems within roughly three miles of the project terminal rather than an entire trip distance between the terminal and facilities up to 30 or 30 miles away. So they only look at 10% of the trip. Three miles, not 30 miles. That's all those extra miles. Who's who's shouldering that? Is that being mitigated? No, it's not. That's the public burden. That's a that's a prejudicial issue in the air. That's one reason you guys should send. We ask and request the council to send this back for clarification, if for nothing else, for disclosure. I address the baseline issue. We can't cherry pick the baseline. And I will say too about short the shoreside power. I mean, she cares about disclosure. We just heard that. Well, maybe we can do 80. We're not sure. None of that is in the air. Another reason why we should go back. We should put that discussion in there. We should involve the public in the Shoreside power question. What the public was told was 66%. That's it. But now we're hearing that 80% is possible. Well, that was news to me as of Friday, certainly news to my clients and the community as of Friday. That's not how secret process works. You have to disclose it. You have to disclose that in the air. And it wasn't. And this might seem like a procedural hiccup. But the public deserves the time it takes to do it right. Because once we send the secret approval out, those emissions are coming. Those 100,000, 66, 166,400 trucks are coming. The ships are coming. And we will lose our chance to identify our best ways to bring the project impacts down. I think the final point. It's really. I have already said and I think I said this is the beginning, that the council has done a good job of identifying the air pollution issues. Now we all know there are serious air pollution issues surrounding the port. Notwithstanding the good work and that our job isn't done yet. And I also credited the companies that do business with the port and the port for its work to reduce the emissions. And I think that is an excellent effort. And yet the law requires us to do more to keep working on this. This air is still unsafe to breathe, and that's why we're here. So. When we talk about Mitsubishi and its awards and I mean I give it credit for the sheer power technology that I identified in 2006, ten years ago almost. But but that's not that's that's a distraction from what we're here to discuss. We're talking specifically about this project, and we're talking about significant impacts that should not be erased that are associated with this project. We're talking about adding pollution to already overburdened area region communities. And we're talking about disproportionately impacted communities that have been shouldering these these burdens for far too long. And they're neighbors of the port. They are workers in the port. We just heard from the MTC Council that the particulate matter, this is tiny little particles that build up in your lungs. That these are very localized impacts. Well, what we didn't hear from them as that. We've got port workers who are breathing that in every day. We've got human health issues. We've got very burdened communities. And. Mitsubishi's awards aside, focus on the size of the project. And what still needs to be done in the environmental review to honor the protection the public deserves. I think I will conclude, and I thank you again for your time and your consideration of my client's concerns on this matter. Thank you very much. We're going to go and let the port conclude their last. I think it was a little bit under 5 minutes or so. You have the time. Okay. So if the, if the port wants to conclude or the, uh, the port and the applicant let them do that, she can set the timer. It's ready to go. Take it away. Right. Thank you very much. We've covered a lot of topics in the rebuttal and the presentations. What we wanted to emphasize were a few points before we go to the discussion with City Council. First, Mitsubishi did make the point, well, that shore power is the number one priority for this project. We did a conservative analysis on this project looking at a minimum of 66% of the vessels calling it the facility would use shore power. The intent is that Mitsubishi will do much more than that in actuality, but 66% was what they were able to achieve previously when they were using their shore power and to be conservative in the analysis. We didn't want to assume more than that, but we did want to provide that as a baseline that we weren't going below. But there will be all of the emissions from all of the ships that will be captured and treated, either through a combination of shore power or the use of the dock system. And we will be doing the demonstration of the max and the demonstration of the diesel particulate filter on the dock system. The in addition, the the analysis for the baseline, we believe is conservative. We could have used a higher baseline than we did using the permitted through throughput limits for the facility. But to be conservative, we use the actual activity that occurred in 2006 addressing the three mile analysis. The traffic analysis was focused within three miles, and that's different than the error modeling that was done for criteria air pollutants. The modeling did go out to 30 miles from the port or 60 miles roundtrip. But I do want to identify specifically the air dispersion modeling that was used for the health risk assessment. Does look at the area where there's the greatest concentration of impacts. And that was in the area that was closer to the port three miles. That's the area related to the health risk assessment that will result in the higher impacts. And so for the traffic analysis and the health risk analysis that was more concentrated closer to the port, but for the criteria, air pollutant analysis, that did go further to 30 nautical miles. I also want to identify that the port has a strong commitment to advanced technologies and continuing progress, and the port will remain committed to addressing air quality impacts and other environmental impacts from all port operations. And we will continue to do that through our efforts like the Technology Advancement Program and the Clean Air Action Plan. And through those processes, we hope to identify new technologies into the future that can be applied to projects like Mitsubishi through our Periodic Technology Review and other projects that we work with going forward. We remain committed to addressing the impacts from port operations and the health risk impacts to the local communities, and we will continue to implement those programs going forward. Thank you very much. Okay. Is that. Are you guys concluding or are you going to take any more time? May I take the last 59 seconds? I just want to speak to one more item, which is the idea of whether there should be one or many options for stack exhaust treatment from ships. We believe that the emphasis that the Port of Long Beach and Sister Port of L.A. has been focusing on clean air in the port , has done just an amazing job of prompting innovation. And we think it is better to have options so that there are a variety of technologies available and each tenant of the port can have a menu to choose from to pick the one that is best suited to its installation. And here we have bear no ill will toward the developer of any other technology. We think that is fabulous. We know that the port, the city, the South Coast Air District, many have invested in the advancement of these technologies. And that's terrific. We just know that this project has selected the right one for this installation. And the question for the council is whether the effect is adequate, I think for this project. Time's up. I so. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So we have completed that portion of the hearing. We're now going to go to public comment. And as a reminder, this is public comment for members of the public that are not the appellant or the applicant, the port. So if you have public comment, please come forward. Okay. Well, I'll give you 1/2. Let me let it kind of line up here so I can. Okay. We're going to before we before we get started. So just as an RFI, we have about in counting everyone, we probably have about an hour of public comment here. So we've obviously heard a lot of a lot of interest and a lot of back and forth and some really good information from both sides. And so you had your 3 minutes. You're welcome to take it. But if we can be a little expeditious, we would appreciate that as well, because we do have a lot of public comment. We want to get to the council because they have a lot of questions and so we want to get to that part as well. So please. Great. Good evening. My name is Morgan Wian. I'm an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC. And we were really involved in the public comment phase of the secret process, but not part of the appeal. I just want to emphasize about the baseline issue here. Counsel for Earthjustice was 100% correct. The court, unfortunately, got the baseline issue wrong in this situation. They did. The wrong baseline cycle requires that the. Baseline for the. Environmental analysis is, quote, the existing physical conditions. Courts have ruled that this cannot be interpreted to mean what the conditions could have been or should have been. The baseline is supposed to be what was actually going on right before the project here. The port did not that they did the wrong thing. They used the level of activity that could have been. They took the last year of major operations 2006 and applied 2015 emission standards. So they took the 2006 operation levels and said what the emissions would have been if we pretend those emissions happened in 2015 to make it worse. 26 operations were not representative of what has actually been going on at the terminal for the past almost ten years. This is the exact wrong analysis to do under Sequoia and what Teco requires. Yes. As other counsel have said today, there is flexibility for the lead agency, the port, to identify their baseline. That is true. But there are situations that courts have said that a baseline analysis is not correct. And this is one of those things the port did. One of the kinds of approaches the courts have already said is incorrect or the port should have done is use a year. That shows what was really going on when the sequel process started, such as 2011, when the port issued the notice of preparation, kicking off the whole secret process. So please send this back to the port to fix this very important part of their analysis. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Evening, Mayor. City Council Staff Jeremy Harris, senior vice president, Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. And before of the Chamber, we wholly support Mitsubishi and its project. We also respectfully request the Council adopt the resolution tonight in the appeals and uphold the Harbor Commission's certificate of final year interest of time. Because I know you've got a lot of speakers here. I just like to go on record to note that, you know, we're joining various other organizations that support this project. So included in your agenda pack and your materials for you to review, of course. And in fact, in some of these organizations at times, they're also supporting this project. We at times as a chamber have been on opposite sides. So today we join with Labor, specifically the building trades to support this project, uphold the Harbor Commissioner's decision and request denial of appeals. Thanks for your opportunity for entering this record. Thank you. The Chamber and Labor together. Just think. Jeremy Skinner All right, next speaker Oops. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor and councilmembers. My name is Elizabeth Warren. I'm the executive director of Future Ports. And we are very proud to to make a note that we have four labor groups as members of future port. So business and labor does work closely together often and on half of future ports. I'm here to express our strong support for this project and request the Council to deny the appeal and uphold the the port. The Port's Decision. This project will ensure that there's an adequate supply of cement to fulfill the demands of four regional building and infrastructure projects. Cement is a critical component of concrete, and that's one of the main materials used by the construction industry for the building of infrastructure projects such as the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project and many others, Mitsubishi and and leading our own industry analysts predict that the demand for cement in California will exceed supply as early as 2016. Over the next decade, over $10 billion is proposed to be invested in and around the San Pedro Bay ports on bridges, rail yards, piers, freeways and other construction projects. The Port of Long Beach is going to be spending $4.5 billion during this time to facilitate the efficient movement of cargo during this period in order to stay competitive in a global market. These projects also support tens of thousands of good construction jobs in and around the San Pedro ports. With the expanded Panama Canal in 2016, Gulf and East Coast ports are aggressively pursuing opportunities to attract cargo away from the San Pedro Bay ports. And completing this project signals that the Port of Long Beach is committed to remaining a part of North America's premier gateway for efficient and environmentally sustainable cargo handling. So we urge you to support this project, and thank you very much for your time this evening and the opportunity to speak. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Howard Kroll, and I'm an attorney with Tucker Ellis. We represent Advanced Clean Up Technologies Inc as their intellectual property counsel. I'm here for two reasons. One is to clarify the misstatements made by the counsel for Mitsubishi in their submission to you all on Friday, specifically when they stated that activities patent is invalid . That is actually a misstatement. They also made a statement that, in fact, our appeal of this issue was meritless, which is somewhat surprising since we haven't even filed our appellate brief. Second reason I'm here is, I believe, a letter that I have submitted to you all has been emailed. I have extra copies for hand delivery, and I am. And that's all I'd like to say. Thank you, sir. Who should I hand? The clerk right over there. Thank you very. Much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And City Council, for allowing me to speak. My name is John Cruickshank, and I'm the immediate past president of the Harbor Association, Industry and Commerce. I also run a small business engineering business that does quite a bit of work in the ports. Usually as a sub consultant to other engineering companies. Anyhow, the reason I'm in support of the Mitsubishi project and I hope that the appeals are denied, is that we are going to be in desperate need of cheaper concrete materials as our economy starts to turn around, which it is. Having less expensive construction material means that the public dollars and the private dollars go much further in regards to construction projects. So the more dollars you have, the more projects that go on. That means more people are working, more engineering companies are busy, and we're able to keep the economy moving. So as a small business owner, I would hope that the City Council can support the Mitsubishi project. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Sylvia Betancur. I work with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma. And I'm here to share with you the health choice. While you've heard much conversation about the technology and emissions and numbers. I want to speak to you about what that really what that lived experience is like for many children who live close to the ports. And for many of the children that we work with, they live right on the fence line of many of these industrial facilities, and they suffer asthma and other respiratory problems that keep them awake at night, keep them out of school. Keep their parents out of out of work. And this is a very serious problem. And and this is a responsibility that is yours to to protect their health. Much of the studies that have come out recently, U.S., for example, showed that with the improvement in air quality has shown an improvement in children's health. And as you take as you make decisions to to continue to improve on the air quality, that the port impacts that responsibility to continue to make decisions that would improve our air quality and and help to improve children's health and our public health. That responsibility lies with you today. So I'm here to to support the appeal. And I ask that you review that final E.R. and review the project. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council Members. I'm Captain Dick McKenna, president of the International Seafarers Center and former executive director for the Marine Exchange of Southern California. I wish to declare my wholehearted support to the Mr. Bush Summit Corporation Modernization Project, the NCC Marine Input Terminal. Import Terminal is an outstanding, important component of the Port of Long Beach and its contributions to Greater Southern California and the Southwest, at a time when local production of cement will no longer support the growing needs of the region. Import of this vital building material has never been more critical. Mitsubishi Cement Corp. has proven itself to be a responsible tenant living up to the standards of the Green Port, supporting Clean Air Action Plan, winning environmental and community awards along the way. Their proposed modernization will only serve to greater improved terminal environmental standards. It also improve the efficiency of ship turnaround times. Plus the another. Plus for the environment. If we are interested in improving port environment, this project should be supported. If we are interested in improving the economy through jobs and responsible growth. This project should be supported. If we are interested in demonstrating support by rewarding a responsible port partner in this project should be approved. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. City council members. My name is Tamara Harris. I'm with the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce as well. And Lee and his group are a small business that works in construction, transportation and goods movement. The council tonight has an opportunity to show that Long Beach can be a leader in both environmental responsibility and job creation. Many of the men and women who spoke here tonight on other items at all work at all faces of the construction industry, from architects to engineers to those in the building trades. I'm proud to work alongside them as a small business. These men and women in their communities here in Long Beach and throughout the region are just now working their way back from the recession. The construction industry is a key driver in that recovery. This project helps to support our industry's growth. It provides a much needed mechanism for meeting the skyrocketing need for cement, which grows as our unemployment numbers fall. By moving forward with this project. The port in the city will be allowing the regional economy to continue growing. Port staff and commissioners have held Marc's feet to the fire in terms of ensuring that the best available technology to mitigate air quality and other environmental impacts are taken advantage of. Their hard work has made it possible to not have to choose between jobs in our environment. The Long Beach of today does not need to adhere to those false dichotomies. We're asking you tonight to stand with support, to stand up for our economy and stand up for the communities and families that depend on the construction industries continued growth. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi. My name is Mike Ariana. Thank you. Tonight I also represent the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce. I'm the president this year. Two points I'd like to make is that you've heard a lot of testimony tonight in your you have a lot of people to have people's testimony to consider. Really, the question I think for you is who are you going to trust the most? And it should be your own staff. They've done the evaluation. It was very well spoken. Many of the other speakers who came up were a little around in some of their comments. The other point is, if you didn't approve the project, what would happen? And it doesn't mean that Mitsubishi wouldn't continue to do business and still have environmental impacts. They're actually doing a project that will increase the and reduce the environmental impacts that will occur. So one thing to really consider is while the environmental analysis has to be done to meet certain baselines, really what's what is for the good of the community and is to approve the project so that it makes it more efficient for less impacts things. Q Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor and members of the council. My name is Stan TOMSIC. I'm executive director of Port Tech. Which is a commercialization center and incubation program, which is dedicated to creating sustainable technologies for ports worldwide. The organization brings together entrepreneurs, strategic partners and investors to accelerate innovation, advance clean technologies and create economic opportunities for tech, promotes facility, and facilitates. The. Development of technologies that enable enterprises to meet their environmental, energy, safety, security, transportation and logistics goals. We applaud Mitsubishi. Cement Corporation on its effort to its continued commitment to improving efficiency while meeting the highest standards of environmental protection through the implementation of shore to ship power emission control systems for ship auxiliary generators and reduced idle wait times for trucks and ships. Port Tech looks forward to assisting Mitsubishi Cement. With its efforts to identify, review and implement with its efforts. And where feasible, new emission control technologies, including zero emissions and near zero emissions vehicles and equipment such as cement delivery trucks and cement handling equipment. We encourage the full support of this project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Jan Hauer and I'm the board president for Long Beach Camerata Singers, and I'm here tonight to support the Mitsubishi project. We know at Camerata that Mitsubishi is a good community citizen through their support for the arts, and we believe that that same good citizenship has extended to their job in preparing for this project. And so we would like you to support it. Thank you very much. Thank you. And before the next speaker, I'm going to cut off the speakers list. So we have the gentleman in the back there. Sure. You'll be the you'll be the last person and there's someone else. Okay. Well, you got to get in line. So please take those gentlemen in the back. Speaker's list is now officially closed. Gentleman with the jacket. You're the last speaker. Yes, sir. Okay. Mayor Garcia, council members. My name is Ron Cheek. I'm a resident of downtown Long Beach, and I'm I'm an engineer. I my company has been in control for 25 years, so I know a little bit about that. I'm a member of the Chamber of Commerce, but my interest here is is personal, not professional. I don't represent any organization or I don't represent the appellant or the or m cc. But Port of Long Beach is a major asset for Long Beach. Thousands of people work there and thousands more are in the associated trade industry that the port spans and Mitsubishi. I have followed this. They've been working for five years to comply with everything that they need to comply with and all the rules. And they basically do what you do in a port. And so I would ask you to support the council that you supported and and approve this and deny the appeal. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name's John Schaefer and the business manager, Paul Dyer is bridge dock and Work Builders Level 2375 in Wilmington, California. I'm also a third generation harbor resident and a third generation pile driver. What I really want to talk about in particular, I need just to try to put it into simple terms. First of all, infrastructure. Cement is critical for building infrastructure and infrastructure. This is not about jobs. I mean, not about jobs or business or whatever else. It's also for environmental safety. And concerns for the community. In addition to from solar projects to water resource management, whether it be from desalination or updating water lines to light rail to subway to high speed rail. All of these projects which will help improve the environment and allow us to move smoother and. Faster, are going to be critical. On cement. You know, and having that local. Access is critical to that kind of development. Secondly, building infrastructure. I know from experience we use heavy equipment. And lots of times that heavy equipment, particularly when it first get started, has difficulty and you test it over and over again. You get newer models to improve it. For example, the Naples Project, they use the machines which are now able to dry those sheet pile fairly quietly and smoothly. But for years, they kept breaking down in all these other jobs. When you say you want to go to L.A. on cement trucks or anything else, the reason they aren't out right now is by analogy. But the latest electric things is because they can't handle the capacity for an infrastructure job. And finally, it's very, very important as somebody who is former community redevelopment agency commissioner. The third thing is, what are you going to do with the existing structure? What's happening in the Panama Canal or even in Nicaragua. Is you say, hey, let's build. Another city, let's build another canal, let's. Do something else. Let's not deal with the existing structure. And that's what happened a lot of times with downtowns and inner cities. They said, let's. Just start over somewhere else. You have good bones in this port. You have good, good bones in the Southern California area. And you need to modernize the rail systems, the port and everything else that protects the environment. I seriously hope that you continue. Do not support that appeal. Continue forward the Mitsubishi project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, city Mayor Garcia and city council members. My name is Julius Clarkson. I am a fourth year student at Cal State Long Beach studying health care administration. I also reside in the seventh District and I'm also here with Eastside Communities for Environmental Justice. I urge the City Council to prioritize the community's health and hold businesses and companies accountable and to ensure that they meet this goal when developing new projects as key decision leaders of the city. The City Council should choose the best project that is green, environmentally friendly and will not negatively impact the health of myself, my family, my friends, and, most importantly, the Long Beach community. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. That evening, Mayor and city council members I'm a constituent of the seventh District, and I'm here to voice my concern about the air pollution and also that we have children and even adults suffering from asthma and other related respiratory problems. So I'm also here with East York Communities for Environmental Justice, and I'm hoping that in following through on this project that. That they'll be mindful of the people who are here and they need help with their health problems. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. City Council. My name is David Walker. And I reside in the eighth district. And I'm here tonight. Representing the Boys and Girls. Clubs of Long Beach in. Support of the Mitsubishi. Cement Company. On this project. First of all, they're absolutely a fantastic corporate citizen. And I want you to know that I also believe that we have one of the best staff and with our port of Long Beach and the commissioners, I asked that you would support them. They've helped make this community a lot greener and in our air a lot better. And I'm looking forward to Mitsubishi coming into town and bringing more, more jobs to our community and ask that you would support them. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening to. Mayor Garcia and fellow council city staff and and port staff that here and the commissioners that's here today in public. My name is Tommy five. I represent International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 11. And we are here in full support of the Mitsubishi project moving forward. We urge the City Council to deny the appeal to move forward with the final year so we can create these good construction jobs, at least 100 plus construction jobs that will be created out of this. I would I would close with this that the port has been a good steward in the city of Long Beach. They have moved on and good environmental projects and good projects that make sense to business and the community. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I was a mechanic there at lead mechanic at Mitsubishi Cement for 14 years. I work for PCMC, which is a well-known mechanical that works out quite a bit of the other terminals there. We take care of equipment and stuff and I hope you guys go ahead with this with the project. Okay. To Mitsubishi. And like I said, I was there for 14 years. I've been a mechanic in the harbor for 22 years. I also am a local member of the, uh, local 13 ILWU. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Nick Speaker. Good evening. Hello, Mayor and Council. I'd like to touch upon two facets that may aid in your decision upon the appeal. I just moved here to Long Beach about a month ago. I moved from a city that has just had terrible bicycling infrastructure. I had to drive everywhere. I never got to walk anywhere. It's the first time in my life as a 23 year old. I can walk to the grocery store, I can bike to the beach. And that's really changed my outlook on how I view my life. And so the city is well known for that. It's a it's a famous for its the most walkable city in America and one of the top ranking on the I know you what is walking somewhere I mean what is cycling somewhere mean if you the air you're breathing is toxic. What if you just don't want to go out and do it anymore? All that infrastructure, all that work at the city of Long Beach has committed to would be diluted. And so with respect to that, I would recommend that the city approve the appeal. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Evening. Good evening. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. My name is Ron that. I have been a resident of Long Beach for 36 years. I grew up in Los Angeles, so I grew up the pollution was horrendous. You know, my brother and I were kids. We'd, you know, get sore chest from coughing and run burning eyes. And I think overall, since then, air quality seems to improve. I live on the west side of Winward Village Mobile Home Park, and with few of my friends here and I invite our council representative to come and visit us there and you to Mr. Mayor sometime and see we have problems there too. And we also have the rail right by us. Noisy, very noisy. I know we have pollution. And I believe some of these cars, the coal cars, I think are still coming by. And there is the asthma we have on the west side of Long Beach. And we I think we're underrepresented. We're not visited enough. We don't have a bank. We don't have a supermarket. We don't have any kind of, you know, the assets that people on the east side or other parts of Long Beach might have. But I do want to put in a complimentary to Councilmember Leonard Gonzalez, who sponsored a job fair, which I think this city, the economy is not as great as you might hear, is it is not that great? I mean, I think the construction, that's fine. But not everybody wants to work in construction. I think people need support jobs like clerical office or warehouse. I try to keep the comment to the to the. Hearing, please. Okay. Okay. All right. So, um, sorry about that. It's okay. I wanted to compliment her on sponsoring this job fair. It was a very good turnout. And I went and I made three contacts. Thank you very much. And so I'm I'm with friends with East Yards, so I'm for environmental and green alternatives. Absolutely. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next, our last speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor Garcia Councilmembers T.L. Garrett. I'm with the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. We represent the terminal operators and ocean carriers on the West Coast of the United States. I'm here in support of the project, asking. You to deny the appeals into affirm the decision made by the harbor commissioners on May 11th staff. The port staff did an outstanding job here. This is a thorough, comprehensive and I believe very conservative assessment of the environmental impacts of this project and just the benefits of modernizing, improving the ship loader and and the storage capacity to decrease the time of the vessels at berth alone justifies this project. But when you throw in the cold ironing the extension of the vessel speed reduction and AQ six, which is this annual periodic review of available technologies, you've got a real winner here. This is a small part of the overall picture, but it's an important part in that it demonstrates the type of progress that can be made. So I'm hoping that you will affirm the prior decision by the harbor. Commissioners, thank you very much. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead now and close the hearing and have the counsel do the deliberation and action. So first up, I have Councilmember Andrews. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight and listening to this very robust, you know, type of, you know, information that we got. Because I thought it was very informal, but it was very factual. And I think that was good for all of us. You know, but as I read over the you know, and hear the report that I have received, you know, I see some substantial changes is being made by the tenants and to lower the emissions for this project. You know, so I, I also understand that the project will bring in nearly 200 full time construction jobs as well. And I always happy to see that good jobs come to the city of Long Beach. You know, so with that, I would like to make the motion to deny and to deny the appeal and adopt the resolution . There's been emotion. And I mean, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, you're the second on that motion. I am a second on the motion. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I wanted to add thank you, Councilmember Andrews, for those comments. I wanted to thank everyone that came here to speak today. I know that we look at these hearings in the appeal process as an opportunity to ask for the various things that we feel we need to to do right by the community. And certainly the last speaker, second to the last speaker that mentioned that he had moved here for the livability, I interpreted that to mean the livability of our city. That's very important to us today. What I had heard earlier from those screens are awful. I'm sorry. Who wants to see themselves that big? Do you do okay. I'm sorry. Easily distracted. What I had heard from the city attorney earlier today was that our our scope was limited to determine whether the air has complied with secure. And Mr. City Attorney, could you re clarify that for me? Yes, that's correct. And like appeals from planning commission decisions, the Board of Harbor Commissioners has the authority to actually approve or not approve a project within the port district, and they've done that. In this case, the role of the city council on this appeal is quite limited. As you indicated, it is to determine whether or not the secret document document serves as an adequate informational document for the city council to determine whether or not all of the impacts have been analyzed that should be analyzed and whether or not all feasible mitigation measures have been opposed, imposed, excuse me. And obviously you've heard both sides of those issues. And so that is the narrow decision that you are confronted with. Okay. I appreciate that. And I think I think the council understands that that is our our narrow scope this evening. However, it does not mean that we are not sensitive to the different requests that may have been mentioned or asked. And I know that the port had taken action to consider some additional mitigation measures at a separate time. And President Drummond, if I might ask you to come up briefly or ask your designee that could answer to that. Yes, absolutely. We're going to do as much as we can environmentally. We consider that Long Beach really is a green port. I've lived here my whole life. I've never seen cleaner air than we have today. And it's going to get better. It's in our DNA now, and we want Long Beach to be a wonderful city, and we want all the neighborhoods to be happy and healthy. Okay. Thank you. And I know that Commissioner Gorski has spoken on it previously. If I could ask her to repeat those statements, I think for the benefit of the council, that would be helpful. Thank you. President Drummond, the mayor, honorable council members and Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Subsequent to the motion, the motions that certified the air by the Harbor Commission, the harbor commissioners made two motions. As you know, Zika is somewhat limited and the harbor commissioners were very compelled by testimony. And in response there were two motions made. The first one was that we have asked staff to consider additional requirements when the lease negotiations come before them and are subsequently presented to us. Those subsequent requirements are dual in nature. We would request that the lease complies with the green port policy. And secondly, we would have directed that the best available technology is considered at that time. The second motion is was also passed and the second motion is referencing the mitigation requirements. And that has not been a subject of the hearing this evening. So I won't go into further detail unless you would request that. No, thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you, President Drummond. Mr. Mayor, would that would that? I'd like to be the second year of the motion and also thank the port for acknowledging that the community has come forward with some very compelling requests that have to do with the livability of our entire community, which I have full faith and trust that the port will honor and do its best to ensure and keep aligned with and on track with its green port policy. Thank you. Just because it's related to the last comment, the lease portion, when is that actually going to be before the Board of Harbor Commissioners? Since I know that part of this discussion is going to continue, then there's a question that staff can answer. Or. Mr. Mayor, we weren't able to start those negotiations until after this consideration of the appeal on the air. After that, I'm sure that our real estate division and others at the port will begin the initial negotiations. Correct? It would be sometimes I'm saying this year or in the next. Correct. Right. Okay. That's. So from a timeline perspective, you think in the next within the next six months, this lease negotiation process will have begun? Is that. I would I would guess that it would start within the next month or so. And then the link to that could vary between, you know, 3 to 9 months depending on how the negotiations go. Thank you. Okay. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Okay. Councilmember Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I, too, want to thank everybody for being here today from both sides Mitsubishi, Samantha's, Earthjustice, the Coalition for Safe Environment. Of course, it's always great to see our harbor commissioners here supporting this project because it's very important that you support the city and we support you in your efforts, in what you're doing. I also want to make a note that I to support the port. I think it's a wonderful economic engine for the city. It's provided jobs. Certainly we're looking at a project here that is looking at creating jobs. Having said all that, I also have a responsibility to my community and my community in the West Long Beach area as well, which is going to be most affected by this project. So I have a couple of questions here on page six of the document that we received to the mayor and addressed to the city council as well. There's a contribution of $333,220 that the port will make in greenhouse gas emission reduction program. I understood the formula and how that you came up with that number. However, I think that's exceedingly low, and I don't think that it really addresses those areas that are strictly very specifically affected by and that would be districts one and seven, which are the most impacted by my any kind of construction or project that takes place in the harbor, especially when it related to this one. So I would I would want to see an increase in that to at least 500,000 and specifically targeted towards areas districts one and seven. Having said that, I'm not too clear on page eight. There's there's a paragraph there, and I'm going to read the specific sentence here. So just so that I can get clarification on what it actually states. We talked about the A.Q. Hamdi being involved in giving a permit. We talked about the there was some discussion about the docks and some discussion about the Amex. The port has determined that the Amex technology is not feasible at this time, but yet the docks is something that you can work with. But there's a sense here, it says if for any reason the S.A., the CAQ indeed does not issue a permit to construct the docks, then the project would not proceed unless FCC receives approval from the harbor department for a modification to the project, which would require an additional evaluation under sequel. In short, the DOCKS is at the core of the project and must be permitted by SCA. Q And in order for MTC to implement the project. Do we have a docs? Constructed right now. And is it is it permitted by sc aq in the. The AQ, M.D. will rely upon the IIR to complete their permit. They I know that Mitsubishi has been in discussions with AQ, M.D. they have a current permit which requires shore power and they were proposing through the hearing board process with AQ, M.D. to use this doc system. They have been in discussions with them over the years as we were going through this air process. But AQ, M.D. will not issue a permit for the use of the docs until after the IIR is certified because they'll be relying upon this document to move forward their permitting process. So if I understand it, they were putting the horse before the cart. You can't have a permit unless you have a sequel. And if you don't and if they don't permit it, then you have to go back and have another secure document done. Is that correct? The to to clarify, the AQ, M.D. will will need the EIA to be certified before they can move forward with the permit. I think the comment that we were making in the staff report was in response to the appellant's concerns about whether or not the docs could be permitted or not. I think that the point that we were making is if for any reason the AQ, M.D. decides not to move forward and approved the DOC system, then the project, as it's been proposed by Mitsubishi, is not a valid project and they'll need to go back through the process again. Also in in some of the discussion that came forward, there's apparently some litigation pending or an appeal of a CARB decision regarding some other technology that's out there. Is that is there any effect on that, on the on the current project in terms of the Docs versus Nomex, for example? No, this the docs system goes through a different process than the other systems that are being tested and evaluated. And and I'll try to explain the reasons why. The doc system is something that Mitsubishi is purchasing and will be using under compliance with their AQ EMD permit for vessels that call it their facility specifically. There are other technologies that are being developed. AMAX has been one that we've discussed today. There's also a technology by cleaner engineering. These technologies are being developed so that they can apply more broadly to a wider variety of different vessels at multiple different facilities. And so to be approved, to be used under that kind of process, they need to go through an approval process with the California Air Resources Board, specifically those technologies. Right now, we're going through the process to be applicable, to use on container vessels as alternatives to the shore power requirement that's being implemented under a regulation by the California Air Resources Board. And so the California Air Resources Board needs to approve those technologies as equivalents to be used as alternatives for the short power requirement that is not applicable in this case, where where Mitsubishi is proposing the use of this technology, specifically at their facility for their vessels, and it will be subject to the requirements of the AQ and permit. So having said that, would it be? Correct. You say that the docks at this time is the best available control technology to be used. The the docks was proposed by Mitsubishi as a part of their project. It was a fundamental element of the part of their of their project. There are no other feasible technologies that can be applied for that same purpose. And we've we are looking at through mitigation, at other things that can be added to the docs, the use of a diesel particulate filter in a demonstration of that to also address the particulate emissions from from the vessels that they're facility and also demonstration and other alternative technologies. But at this point, this is the technology that was proposed as part of the project, and there are no other feasible technologies that can further reduce emissions. Okay. Well, in regards to. The docs and the and the amount that is going to be offered for litigation. You know, I can't really support this at this time because I think it would be I'd be shortchanging my community out there in regards to not only the amount that's available to the community, but also not ensuring that we have actually the best available technology control technology out there. Um. One thing I want to clear. I'm sorry. I'd like to ask. Well, go ahead. One thing I wanted to clarify is that the primary emission reduction control for vessels calling at the facility will be the use of shore power. And we've put in that a minimum of 66% of the vessels will be using shore power. The intent is that they'll go further than that to be but to be conservative in the analysis which we kept to, the analysis focused on 66%. The use of the docks system will only be used when shore power cannot be used. So best available control control technology will will be the use of shore power. And then the dock system will supplement that to ensure that all vessels calling at the facility will be controlled. But that raises another concern of mine in regards to the 66% being the baseline which was set back, what, 2006 or 2009, whatever that date was. So I'm concerned about that because here we are in 2015 and and that's very old baseline to use. We know that there's going to be an effect on the environment regarding this project. So I'm not sure that that having that number is is feasible at this time. But I was going to ask the city attorney if because of pending litigation or whatever is is out there in regards to and the possible changes that I want to have or I want to have included in in this document, the increase in and specifically in the increase in the mitigation of funds for the for the community. What would be the effect of, say, proposing a 60 day delay and reviewing this project? And I'm pushing this forward. Thank you. Mr. Mason. Can you answer that question, please? In a situation like this, school cases are designed to move quickly through the system. There's a 60 day requirement to set the matter for hearing which was met in this case. I think we're very close to the end of the 60 day period. There would have to be good cause demonstrated in order to continue it and something would have to be articulated that there was a need to continue it. Otherwise the city would potentially be subject to litigation by the applicant if we unduly delayed the project. So we'd have to hear some good cause to do it. Well, I think trying to protect my community is a good cause when it comes down to it. I'm not I'm not going to be voting to grant the appeal to I'm going to be voting to grant the appeal because I want to see these two items specifically addressed. And if it will require an additional review, I think that we should do it. Like I say, it's not about anti-jobs or anti Mitsubishi or A.A. support. It's about wanting to address the concerns of my community as it as it addresses the environmental issues and having the best possible technology out there that is currently available. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales. I want to think the port. I want to thank e-cards. I want to thank everyone for being here and speaking on both issues, both sides of the issue, I should say. I have a couple questions that I would like answered and maybe clarification. There was a lot of information and I just wanted to make sure that I'm getting everything correct in reference to Amex. Can. I didn't hear specifically on one with this when this would be commercial, commercially feasible. I know you said in about five years it may be, but maybe I'm getting that incorrect. Yeah. For for the Amex specifically, I have actually been involved with that technology and the demonstrations that we've done in the ports since 2006. We've been working with them on evaluating, evaluating the application of their technology. It's gone through different phases of of treatment technologies installed on the system. Most recently, they've gone through some extensive testing on container ships there. Their primary focus has been on getting their technology approved with the barge based system for application on container ships to use as an alternate alternative to shore power through the card regulation. They have not yet started the demonstration of the the current configuration of their technology on other vessel types, which should include the bulk vessels that call at the Mitsubishi facility. The port recently approved around $2 million for a demonstration of that technology to apply to other vessel types so that bulk vessels, tankers, car carriers and other vessels . That demonstration has not yet begun. We would need to go through the demonstration and emissions testing of that technology and then go through the CARB approval process before that it could be approved for use. That that process, we're hoping that we can initiate it fairly soon here, but it will it will take some time to go through all of that and make sure that everything is is underway. What we've done with the five years specifically is the Periodic Technology Review. So even though the Amex is not a feasible technology today and we don't know how it performs compared to other technologies, the hope is that when we enter into the lease with Mitsubishi, we won't lose the opportunity to capture further emission reductions in the future. And so we've applied this periodic technology review. So every five years we'll sit down with Mitsubishi and do an evaluation of the different technologies that are available. And if better technologies are available that are feasible and can be implemented into their operations, that gives the port the opportunity to require those on Mitsubishi going forward so that we don't miss an opportunity in the future when those technologies become available. Okay. So two follow up questions from what I understand. So we don't have a clear picture of Amex and when that could be commercially feasible. We don't have a timeframe. We don't have a defined schedule at this point. That's correct. And then as far as the review, the tech review, what is the basis for the five years? Because I do know, as we all know, technology rapidly changes. So what would be the basis for the five year mark? The port already has a five year reopen are to discuss financial terms. This is a standard part of our lease process, ongoing long term lease process. So as we sit down with the tenants and this is a requirement that we've been putting into leases over the last several years, so this isn't new and unique to Mitsubishi. This is something that we've done for all of our new leases that have come about in the last several years as a part of our green port policy. But what this does is it gives us an opportunity when we sit down to discuss and renegotiate financial terms, we will also discuss environmental conditions. Okay. And I know we went over the GHG emission. I too am not very happy with the amount $300,000 if you calculate it based on the construction projected construction, $80 million, it's less than 1% of mitigation that would be back to the community. So I too also have a responsibility to my, my residents and uh, absolutely completely supportive of our port and what they've done with port, with, with the emission reduction and with the green port policy, as well as businesses that do strive to get there. But, you know, I understand this is narrow. This is secure. And although this may be the case, I still don't agree with the bare minimum and the sufficiency of and the standards of the mitigation. So I too will not be supporting this. Uh, I will actually be supportive of granting the appeal, but not supportive of the project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Councilor Brosnan. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be very brief. I just wanted to get some clarification. We heard in testimony from from both sides that the last time that this facility was in full operation was prior to the economic downturn in 2006. And I also heard that potential from the appellants that it would be potential 166,000 additional truck trips. The question I have, I guess, for anybody who can ask answer this question is how many truck trips were there in 2006? Estimate it. Councilmember, if you give us 2 seconds, we could probably find that answer for you. It's part of the baseline, and I believe our council's looking for it right now. Okay. Dr. Rosner, there may be other questions. You have no doubt that they can get back to me when they can't help you. Why don't we move on to the next couple of questions and we'll go back to this, as I said. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember. Next up I have is Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to thank both sides for coming out and educating me on this on this issue. I want to thank our harbor commissioners for taking the time to not only come to my field office to talk to me personally about it, but to have three harbor commissioners here carries a lot of weight with me. I just a couple questions and then some some thoughts after hearing this issue. So in terms of the baseline, as I understand it, they use the 26 levels, which is nine years ago and it does seem like a long time ago, but it seems like it makes sense since I heard that there was an air prior to that that covered those things that all the impacts prior to 2006, is that correct? That's correct. There was a secure evaluation for the existing facility. So by evaluating 26 levels and beyond, we're looking at everything above and beyond prior mitigation. We're looking at the proposed new project, which would be new. Okay. I'm okay with that because it seems like it seems like it seems unfair to me to penalize a future project for the past project if those things have already been evaluated in terms of the next thing docks versus Amex. And I've had the opportunity to learn about HMX and I've learned recently about docks, and they seem very similar. I'm sure there are some differences, but can can you simply articulate the difference in terms of capturing emissions between docks and Amex? I may need to rely on Mitsubishi's technical expert to get into some of the nuances, but I can try to provide a description of it. The treatment technology itself is actually very similar. Both of them use selective catalytic reduction to treat nitrogen oxide emissions. The difference with the DAX is that it was proposed by Mitsubishi as it did not include a diesel particulate control. So that's why we did apply the mitigation through the project, which would require them to use a diesel particulate filter to demonstrate its effectiveness to treating diesel emissions. That is the same type of technology that's also applicable to the AMEX. One of the specific differences between the technologies is the Amex is barge mounted and it can move around between different facilities. It can treat vessels at anchor and also at different berths. The Mitsubishi facility will be while it will be on wheels and can move back and forth, it will be located specifically at their facility to connect to vessels that call it their facility. But the treatment technologies themselves are very similar. So the treatment is similar, but Mitsubishi prefers docs because it's built custom to their facility. And they need it to move forward with purchasing something to address their AMD permit requirements and that was what was available to them. Okay. I have a question for the. I have a question for the Earth Justice folks. And so I see a slide here. And it didn't show up on the screen, but it came here. And on the third page there, there's a thing that says Mates for study, and there's a few quotes here and one stood out. And I want you to elaborate. Explain to me what you mean. It says, Among the monitored areas, the highest simulated risk was estimated for West Long Beach, followed by Central Los Angeles, Huntington Park, North Long Beach and Compton. What is that? So this is a study that's done by the about studying the regional air base and the impacts. And it's been done four times. And the risks are the health risks associated with, as I described succinctly earlier, that the health risks from the air pollution. So cancer risks. Pulmonary risks so. In general is in general that the air is bad in those areas. Yes. This isn't just. The most disproportionately. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And if you. If you look at the numbers, these are the communities that are the hardest hit. I get it. I get it. Thanks for clarifying. I was unsure whether there was a particular study or evaluation that connected this project to North Long Beach. I have been saying it for a long time that North Long Beach is impacted by things that may happen outside of 33 miles away. But I don't. I get where you're going. Thank you so much. That's my only question for you. Next. So. So I guess so. I heard someone mention 200 jobs. I heard somebody say 100 jobs. Is there an estimate? An estimate on what the construction job impact versus the operating ongoing job impact going to be with this project? I would like to ask Mitsubishi to respond to that. Actually, I'm motivated. With environmental audit. I actually did try to calculate that information. We talked to all of our design staff to figure out where we're at today and what the estimated jobs for construction will be. And it's actually around 100. The project at its peak is expected to have 80 construction workers operating at the facility. That's what was analyzed for peak day. The total number of construction jobs is in the neighborhood of 100. So I guess my follow up question is the ongoing jobs. Is there a plan for local are you going to hire local folks for those positions? Because it's expanding. These are people who don't currently work there. Right. Those are construction jobs. No. Operating? No. But the 100 is is I instruction. The operations of the facility vary and it will be. It normally operates between 50 and 30 to 45 people, depending upon which activity is going on at the facility. And those historically have been ILWU jobs. I got it. There are jobs. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. So next I heard I heard the discussion about the 66%, you know, on cold ironing and they potentially could do 80, 80%. What is the what? So what is the overall sort of percentage port wide like not just this facility, but how how are all the tenants knowing. For sure power specifically there's a regulatory requirement at the state that specific to container vessels, cruise vessels and reefer. So in the port of Long Beach, we do have the container vessels. On the city side, we have the crews. The requirement currently is for 50% of the the fleet emissions to be controlled. So basically 50% of the container ships and container ships are roughly about 50% of the calls that we receive at Port of Long Beach. That requirement is going to step up in the future. Up to 80% of the the emissions will need to be controlled at berth from those particular vessel types container ships, cruise ships and reefer bulk vessels like call it Mitsubishi, don't have a requirement currently at the state level or at the port to use shore power. This facility is unique and goes beyond what other bulk terminals are doing right now, and they're subject to this requirement because of their permit with Hamdi. So container vessels have a 50% requirement. So everyone's operating. Are we meeting that requirement of 50%? I believe that's a regulatory requirement with the state. And does that include both the on dot electric as well as the, you know, the cold wiring as well as the Emacs type systems? All of that can make up the 50 50%. We're just plugging in. That would be the theory. The Amex technology is not currently approved as an alternative to shore power, cleaner engineering technology. It was just recently approved. But but it's the combination of all of those to control emissions from vessels at berth. So that makes me feel better that this is at 66%. So it's higher than what is required. I am concerned that the it's going to step up to 80%, but it doesn't include this type of operation. So I want to see that there's maybe through the green port policy or some other mechanism that this can maintain at the same level or above the same level of the port wide standard in, you know, in the years to come. Next, it does seem to me that the mitigation just seems low. But at the same time, you know, the ninth edition was cut out of cut out of the environmental mitigation grants last time, and we didn't see very much of that money. So I would you know, I know we had a conversation in the past about, you know, taking another look at the way we administer things strategically about combining all these projects that keep coming to city council about a more comprehensive mitigation approach. Because the fact is, everything north of Market Street wasn't eligible for the trees. We were ranked the lower ranked when we applied for for those mitigate mitigation dollars. So I think this is sort of a larger issue for me. So I'm not going to penalize this particular project for that issue that I think is a larger policy issue for our council and our harbor commission. So hopefully with new harbor, new new harbor commission and new council, we can engage in that discussion again. Council Member Richardson Also on the May 11th Board of Harbor Commissioners hearing, there was there was a motion made by our Board of the Harbor Commission in direction of staff to actually come back within 60 days. We're actually a little beyond that. We're going to be in early August having a study session. Our board has asked us to relook at those programs pursuant to what you just referred to and what you would like to see. And so that would be at the agenda meeting. And we will be reevaluating all those programs. I feel I feel I'm I'm glad that you folks have heard us and you're going to take that on, and I'm going to pay attention to that that coming council meeting. So finally, the other thing that stood out to me, I'll let you got a response. I just wanted to make one point because I note your disappointment about the amount of money that you're receiving and the amount of money you're receiving is linked to the amount of impacts that's identified in the report. So if you identify the impacts more accurately, you'll get you'll see more money. It's linked, right? And that's why we really think the analysis of the. Impacts right now, we get none of the money. So what's that? Right now we get 000. So so next. So finally, I did hear a few times tonight the conversation about the backlog and that we're modernizing to get rid of that backlog. And I know that our port has a great reputation across the country. I serve as chair of our Federal Legislation Committee, but I have been privy to conversations in Washington, DC around, you know, the efforts of other ports to sort of diminish our ability to be competitive in terms of utilizing labor disputes or inefficiencies to say that we can't move cargo as fast. And I actually appreciate that Mitsubishi is stepping up and modernizing their operation to get rid of a backlog so that they're not contributing to a backlog, but rather helping to be a leader and get rid of a backlog. And so so, you know, I want to I want to I want to encourage that. I think we should be encouraging our tenants and operators to modernize, to make sure that they they value our needs to remain competitive, but also our our, you know, our commitment to the green port policy. My so I guess my question with that is, was that evaluated like the impact of. The ships idling per se the backlog of ships was that evaluated in this year and it. This is good stuff. Yeah. Um. All of their operations were evaluated in this. We looked at the number of calls that come the the typical time at birth. All of and and time and anchor. It did provide a comprehensive evaluation of the vessel activities and the future vessel activities that would be associated with this additional storage capacity at their facility. So will this help clear up the back load? That's the intent. That was one of the objectives for Mitsubishi proposing. This project is building the additional storage capacity at their facility will allow them to more efficiently move through the cement that they have at the facility and make sure that they've got the adequate storage capacity so that vessels can offload. Okay. So so again, I want to thank everyone for for coming out and, you know, into the community members. I want to say that I think there are, you know, maybe we should have a broader conversation about how to be strategic, about multiple projects and and make sure that the council and everyone understands the long term strategy here. I want to be supportive of making sure that our Long Beach remains on the forefront in terms of providing the standard across the country for what is available in terms of technology. I think that there needs to be some education here around what is available and what isn't, because all the experts have said this is what the status is in terms of what's available in the community, saying that this is what's available. And I think we just need to have a conversation outside of the hearing to start like really like bring city council members to see that see see this technology. Let's talk about it. So that said, I'll be voting in support. Thank you. Thank you. And last, I'm going to go back to Councilman Austin so he can have this question answered. Yes. Thank you very much. We actually did get the number. So the 26 baseline truck trips were 53,056. And that's compared to the new capacity for the proposed project of 166,000. Roughly over 166,000. And so what does that mean in terms of total Trump truck troops from the Port of Long Beach? In terms of additional percentage, it would estimate that. Would be a. Very small percent of the total truck trips from the port. I don't have the total number. In terms of the activity just from our container terminals. Uh, in the, if you look at the complex as a whole, you have to add the Port of Los Angeles in to that. When you're talking about truck ships that come over the Geraldton Bridge on July seven, ten, 60% of those truck trips come from the Port of Los Angeles. You're probably looking at 1% at best of an increase and I would I would hesitate to use that number. I'm just kind of guessing just based upon the other activity, the port. And in terms of emissions. Would you say the the idling of the vessels would probably produce more NOx than than the the the trucks that are burning with cleaner trucks under the Clean Air Program. Um, once again, I mean, it's, I mean, if you look at it from an idling ship versus a truck idling. Yeah, but that wasn't the type of analysis we did in the environmental document. I want to be clear about that. But yes, I mean, theoretically, if you're able to have less ships at anchor idling on their auxiliary engines and at berth or moving forward faster and more efficient manner, you're going to have probably a better emission profile than idling trucks. Yes. Hey, thank you. Okay. Thank you. We're going to go and go now to the vote. This is the motion by Councilmember Andrews. The motion he had made was to deny the appeal and adopt the resolution as presented by the Port of Long Beach and the second with Vice Mayor Lowenthal. So please cast your vote on Council for Andrew's motion. Motion carries six two. Thank you very much. I'm going to make a quick comment and then I want to take a quick break. I just want to make sure that the harbor commissioners are here, as well as support staff, had a chance to really hear what the councilors had to say when it comes to the mitigation concerns. And I only repeat those just because we've talked about those at the briefing that we had last week. I know that all of you were showed concern at your meeting as to the number as well. And I'm hopeful that in the least conversations that are that are upcoming, you'll be able to hopefully partner with Mitsubishi and have a conversation about what really is the expectation from the community and the council. In addition to that, I would just also encourage the harbor commissioners that are here to really take heart of what the council said when it comes to the larger picture of mitigation and how those the formulas that we're currently using, you've already heard from me and how you've heard from them. We don't really need to be looked at from a community point of view. So think you all think the port staff. Think the community. Everyone that came out. We really appreciate you coming out for this very long. But but important hearing. Thank you. We're going to take a 3 to 5 minute recess to the council and take a break and we'll come back to start our council meeting. Okay. We're starting the council meeting back up. So if I can have a roll call, please. Council meeting? Starting back up. Councilwoman Gonzales. Vice Mayor. Longtime Councilwoman Price. Councilmember, Supernova Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Ringa. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Here we have a quorum. Yes. I am here. And I want to make. I want to go and make it fucking everyone's attention, please. I want to go and make a just an announcement, and then we're gonna go and get started to with the rest of the of the meeting. I do want to announce. Just real briefly, even though he's going to be embarrassed that I'm doing this, but before he leaves, this is actually Eric Bradley that our first children reporters last meeting covering the Long Beach City Council. And for those for those that for those that do not know the Pete's loss is the city's gain, because the Port of Long Beach has actually hired Eric to be a senior writer at the Port of Long Beach. And so while I know he's not enjoying this, I just thought, you know, this is his last meeting. He's been covering the city of Long Beach and City Hall for a long time. He's going to enter a new phase in his career. It was made official by the port, I think, last week. And I think your last days tomorrow, Eric, or Friday. It's like. Okay, he's he won't respond, but that's okay. Friday. Okay. His last day with the president is Friday. And we know he will be he will be actively covering, covering, covering us until Friday. So sorry if I embarrass you, Eric, but it is his last day. So let's give counsel let's give Eric our reporter a round of applause. So thank you for all the good and the bad stories. We appreciate it. Okay. So moving on to that, we're going to go ahead and go to the next item, Madam Clerk.