Dockworkers, Environmentalists Rally Against Coal Facility
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More than 300 dockworkers and environmentalists protested alleged safety hazards at a new coal exporting facility at the Port of Los Angeles on Monday as Mayor Richard Riordan and officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers celebrated a massive dredging and landfill project nearby.
The dredging project, the largest in the nation, is the cornerstone of a $650-million program designed to accommodate a predicted doubling of cargo through the port in the next 20 years. It is the port’s most ambitious development project in its 90-year history.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is concerned that coal dust at the new exporting facility is a health hazard and that the company awarded the contract to operate the facility, Pacific Carbon Services, wants to use nonunion workers.
“This is not just a jobs thing,” said union official Kevin Schroeder. “We also have to watch out for the health and safety of the workers and the community.”
The $200-million coal exporting terminal, scheduled to open in the fall, will load Western United States coal on ships bound for Asia.
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