Opinion: Bay Area’s largest port must consider environmental justice

Megaship impacts start in Oakland and cascade throughout the region, harming people along the freight corridor.

With smoke blanketing the East Coast from Canadian wildfires, the dangers of polluted air are at the forefront of millions of Americans’ minds. This is something Californians are all too familiar with, but it’s also a danger that people in my West Oakland community face even outside of wildfire season.

Air pollution is significantly worse year-round in port-adjacent communities like where I live, and decisions we make today can impact our air for generations. The Army Corps of Engineers recently announced a project that would widen the turning basins at the Port of Oakland to allow more visits from “ultra-large container vessels” — 1,300-foot megaships longer than the height of Salesforce Tower. Without more community input and a better environmental-review process, this project will move us in the wrong direction in our fight to correct decades of environmental injustice.

Each megaship could carry over 19,000 containers that need to be unloaded and transported by truck, rail and other industrial equipment. This additional shipping and freight traffic, and its fossil fuel pollution, will cascade out into the Bay Area and through Interstate 880 into the San Joaquin Valley and beyond, harming people along the freight corridor.

These impacts will spill first and foremost into West Oakland, which has fought for years to address a legacy of environmental racism and toxic air pollution. For decades, my community has disproportionately experienced health risks and lower life expectancy due to pollution exposure.

When the Army Corps released a draft environmental assessment for the turning basins expansion project, it failed to consider the air pollution impacts that this expansion would have on my community.

Seventy percent of West Oakland’s residents are people of color, and half of new childhood asthma cases here are due to traffic-related air pollution, compared to about 20% of new childhood asthma cases in the nearby affluent and mostly White neighborhoods in the Oakland hills. Asthma hospitalizations for West Oakland residents are 88% higher than the Alameda County average, and heart disease deaths are 33% higher. Exposure to diesel exhaust and particulate matter is especially insidious because it crosses the blood-brain barrier and elevates people’s risk for developing bronchitis, emphysema and stroke.

As a West Oakland community leader, I want the Army Corps to redo its analysis and produce a complete environmental impact statement that properly analyzes the air quality, public health, environmental justice and other impacts of this dangerous project.

The Corps’ failures are magnified as we see a push toward environmental justice at all levels of government: The Biden administration just signed Executive Order 14096 “to confront long-standing environmental injustices and inequities” and strengthen engagement with communities through meaningful public participation in agency decision-making. There are massive amounts of state and federal funding flooding into ports around the country to accelerate their zero-emissions transition — including millions of dollars to the Port of Oakland.

Why is the port taking advantage of new funding while simultaneously doubling down on a misguided project that could invite more megaships, trucks and trains into our communities? And why is the Army Corps ramming through this project without meaningfully consulting West Oakland residents and addressing the environmental justice concerns we have raised? The port should be focused on achieving zero-emissions — as neighboring communities have pleaded with them to do for years.

The port and the Army Corps have a responsibility to take a closer look at their proposal because it could have reverberating impacts in the Bay Area for decades to come. They must actually commit to principles of equity and environmental justice — not just pay lip service to them.

Margaret Gordon is a founding member of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a resident-led, community-based environmental justice organization dedicated to achieving healthy homes, healthy jobs and healthy neighborhoods.

The comment period on the Army Corps’ draft Environmental Assessment closes Friday. Written comments may be emailed to OaklandHarborTurningBasinsStudy@usace.army.mil.