The environmental process for California’s ports already is an exhaustive list of alphabet soup: CEQA, NEPA, EIR, EIS, HRA, CAA, CWA, EPA, CARB, DTST, NPDES, just to scratch the surface. The result of this ever-increasing list has been environmental documents that used to be a few hundred pages are now thousands – and project evaluations that used to take one to two years now seem to go on indefinitely.
Even with all this oversight, there still are those who argue the process is not extensive enough and they say we need another process to be layered on. This new process is called an HIA, or Health Impact Assessment.
Earlier this year, the EPA (that’s the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) began a process potentially to add this new acronym to the list. It held a public workshop, circulated a Draft SOW (scope of work), and solicited comments about doing HIAs for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The consultant that EPA selected to head this process, the only entity that seems to understand what an HIA is, has been either unwilling or unable to communicate that understanding to those of us who have asked simple and basic questions about what an HIA is, what it covers, who is responsible for preparing it, who is responsible for funding it and who is responsible for deciding when it is finished. And the most fundamental question left unanswered concerning an HIA: Why is it needed?
No one is saying that the current environmental review process is perfect, or that it can’t be improved. However, before we create another environmental evaluation process there should be a clear understanding of the deficiencies of the existing process and how an HIA addresses those deficiencies.
At the initial workshop, EPA’s consultant made it clear they were not familiar with the current CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act)/NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act). Nonetheless, they were convinced that there are human health impacts that are not being addressed that could only be addressed by conducting an HIA. What they failed to accept is that the current CEQA/NEPA process, which is already the most comprehensive environmental review process done anywhere in the nation, if not the world, already requires that the ports address any impacts raised either during the public scoping process that proceeds the preparation of an EIR/S (Environmental Impact Report/Statement) or that arise from the public comments on those documents.
Failure to explain
They also failed to explain if HIA should be conducted on specific projects or should be done comprehensively on all of the impacts from operations at the ports. They could not suggest who would be responsible for preparing the HIA or who would ultimately be responsible for deciding when it was completed.
Unfortunately, this was not unexpected since there are no existing protocols or established methodologies for preparing an HIA. In fact, the NSA (National Science Academy) is working to create a guidance document for the preparation of HIAs, but it is not known when that guidance will be available. Until then, a correctly scoped and prepared HIA seems to come under the infamous definition of pornography: We will know it when we see it.
In the absence of more information and public policy debate, it is difficult to imagine how the HIA process can add any value beyond the current environmental process. As now proposed, the methodology and results are likely subjective, qualitative and ultimately speculative. Neither is it likely that the HIA process will result in any additional mitigation beyond what the ports already provide given the extensive list of regulatory requirements and port-adopted mitigation programs, such as the SPBCAAP (San Pedro Bay Clean Air Action Plan) and the WRAP (Water Resources Action Plan).
A cynic might be tempted to think that the HIA is just a thinly disguised effort to stop any future port development by creating a process to influence decision-makers that there are negative health impacts that are left unaccounted. But that same cynic would probably sit in front of a bowl of alphabet soup while contemplating the state of environmental policies, governmental procedures and political correctness, and find the letters FUBAR (fouled up beyond all recognition) and expect to see something called an HIA associated with a port development project in the very near future.
T.L. Garrett is vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, a trade organization that represents marine cargo terminal operators and seagoing vessels that are engaged primarily in container shipping at West Coast ports.
