Port Truck Drivers, Environmental and Community LeadersTo Speak Out In Favor Of Ports’ Clean Trucks Program

Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports Press Contacts:
Barbara Maynard: (213) 387-0780 or (323) 351-9321 (cell)

Los Angeles (June 6, 2007) On Thursday, June 7, 2007, at 5:00 PM, drivers from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, their families, and members of the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports will speak out in support of the Ports' plan to set new environmental accountability standards for port trucking companies.  Drivers will urge the Ports to quickly pass a plan that requires trucking companies to meet new standards as a condition of doing business at the ports.

Last month, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach proposed the "Clean Trucks Program" to overhaul the chaotic port trucking system that is rife with inefficiencies, a threat to public safety, and pollutes the environment.  The Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports supports the Ports' comprehensive and sustainable Clean Trucks Program because it addresses the root problems in the port trucking system. Currently, responsibility for buying and maintaining trucks rests on a mostly immigrant workforce who cannot afford environmentally clean vehicles, rather than those trucking companies and their corporate clients who profit from the system. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach's Clean Trucks Program will shift the responsibility of cleaning up the air from the drivers to the trucking companies, who then can pass the true cost of goods movement onto giant retail shippers like Wal Mart, Target, and Home Depot.

Drivers will insist that the ports move quickly to implement a new trucking plan. "We die a little each day that this broken system is allowed to continue," said Raul Agamemon, a port truck driver who lives in the harbor area. "My children have no choice but to breathe the filthy air and grow up suffering from asthma. They are not just uncomfortable; they are in danger."

Recently the California Trucking Association threatened to file lawsuits to stop the implementation of new standards set forth by the Ports' plan and leave the burden for maintaining environmentally clean trucks on the drivers.  But communities near the Ports, along with environmentalists, labor and religious leaders, and health experts, call the trucking industry's opposition to the Ports' plan dangerous and even deadly to the health of port communities and drivers.

"These port drivers are members of our harbor-area communities. They suffer the consequences of the broken port trucking system first-hand," said Rafael Pizarro, Senior Campaign Associate with the Coalition for Clean Air, one of the nearly 40 organizations that have joined the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports. "Drivers breathe polluted air on the job and their families breathe it at home."  

Who:      Port truck drivers and their families, including children with asthma. Other members of the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, including leaders from the Coalition for Clean Air, Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club Harbor Vision Taskforce.

What:     Press conference before the 2nd of two Ports' forums for drivers on the Clean Truck Program.

When:    Thursday, June 7, 2007; 5:00 PM Press Conference, followed by 6 PM Forum.

Where:    Banning's Landing Community Center, 100 E. Water Street, Wilmington (the South end of Avalon Blvd.)

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Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports * 1714 Franklin St., Suite 325, Oakland, CA 94607

The Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports is committed to working with Port stakeholders to develop a lasting solution to the crisis in port trucking. The Coalition includes environmental, labor, faith, public health and community organizations that are promoting sustainable economic development at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

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