Local ports clean up as cities pressing for 'Green' initiatives.

The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have been recording record or near record activity lately--and so it's been with their green initiatives.

Under mounting pressure from politicians, regulators and neighboring communities to reduce pollution even as shipping activity accelerates, the two ports have announced clean air agreements in the last several weeks.

The Port of Long Beach announced the signing of the first "green lease" with International Transport Services Inc. The 20-year lease marks the first time in the United States that wide-ranging pollution-reducing measures have been included into a terminal lease.

"This is a huge step in getting the shipping industry on board in an effort to reduce pollution," said John Pope, a spokesman for the Long Beach port. "With this agreement we're establishing the standards by which future leases will be structured."

The terminal, which ITS shares with shipping company K-Line America Inc., agreed to implement shore-side power, also called "cold ironing," as well as to replace existing cargo-handling equipment with eco-friendly forklifts and cargo movers. This move is predicted to reduce pollution at the 246-acre Pier G/J complex, the port's third-largest terminal, by up to 90 percent.

Financial incentives are likely to be included in these agreements, though the port and ITS have not commented. Earlier this year, for example, the port initiated the "Green Flag" program which offers reduced docking fees for ships that travel under a lower, pollution-reducing speed limit while approaching the harbor.

ITS officials did not return telephone calls for comment.

Earlier this year, Seattle-based terminal operator SSA Marine and Oakland-based Matson Navigation Co. renegotiated their lease with the Long Beach port to include provisions for cold ironing at their Pier C facility, a 68-acre site, making cold ironing available at two of the seven terminals at the port Maersk Line, a unit of Copenhagen-based A.P. Moiler--Maersk Group, the world's largest shipping company, also announced recently that 22 of its ships docking at the ports would voluntary switch from "bunker fuel" or dirty diesel fuel, to cleaner, low-sulfur fuel--which the company said will take more than 400 tons of particulate pollution out of the air every year.

The Port of Los Angeles also announced a new leasing policy that will, like Long Beach, implement green policies when leases are renegotiated. The Los Angeles port already has one existing cold ironing facility in use by China Shipping Co., but that was built to settle a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resource Defense Council three years ago.

"By voluntarily converting to the least polluting diesel fuel, they are demonstrating the leadership, responsibility, and commitment to the environment that makes Maersk welcomed partners in my efforts to grow and green the Port of Los Angeles," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in a statement.