Opponents look victorious in bid to close pipeline.

Although a formal vote won't be taken until next month, the Port of Los Angeles harbor commissioners are not expected to renew a pipeline permit held for 30 years by AmeriGas Propane LP, which exports liquid butane from an on-site holding facility.

A series of preliminary recommendations from staff members and an advisory committee of neighborhood residents and maritime officials have all gone against the pipeline, which runs underneath the Harbor Freeway between Berth 120 and a San Pedro storage facility.

For years, neighbors have been trying to close down the storage facility, which collects butane from area refineries. But its lease doesn't end for another 15 years. So they've targeted the pipeline for closure in hopes that it will lead to a quicker shuttering of the storage facility.

In an effort to save the pipeline, AmeriGas has hired former L.A. City Councilman Rudy Svorinich, now a lobbyist, to blanket the area with mailers warning residents of San Pedro, Wilmington and Harbor City that they should pressure commissioners to support keeping the pipeline open.

If the pipelines cannot be used, the fliers say, the fuel would be transported through the neighborhoods by tanker trucks and rail cars.

"4,000 Trucks Could Be Coming to Your Neighborhood ..." according to the flier, which contains a postcard addressed to the harbor commissioners.

"We're going to continue to operate our storage terminal but our mode of operation is going to change," said Mark Thomas, director of logistics for AmeriGas. "Instead of sending ships out, we're going to have to move trucks and rail cars through the community."

Some residents say this would sidestep the central reason they want the operation shut down or moved: the danger of a hazardous storage facility in or near a neighborhood. The facility contains two 12 million-gallon refrigerated holding tanks.

"I characterize (the flier) as a threat," said Noel Park, president of the San Pedro and Peninsula Homeowners Coalition and a member of the Port Community Advisory Committee. "They are saying we have this extremely dangerous operation and if you don't let us continue we'll make it more dangerous."

Svorinich's mail campaign kicked off during the first week of April in anticipation of a May 12 presentation Houston-based AmeriGas is scheduled to make to the commission before its vote.

In a Feb. 17 letter to port staff, the property management department recommended not renewing the permit. Two days later, the Port Community Advisory Committee, which consists of neighborhood activists and maritime officials, made the same recommendation.

The Board of Harbor Commissioners then sent the matter to the community advisory panel's port subcommittee for further consideration, where it was also rejected.

The 30-year agreement expires May 27. The port committed to relocating the operation as early as 1979, after the U.S. Coast Guard warned that liquefied gases were a "cargo of particular hazard."

If the AmeriGas pipeline permit is not renewed, trucks and rail cars will have to haul the butane to a similar facility near Houston instead, Thomas said.

One alternative is to relocate the storage facility to Pier 400, originally designed for hazardous facilities. However, the lure of high rents and increasing container traffic flow enticed port officials to lease most of the pier to the Maersk Sealand steamship line, operated by A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the port's largest tenant.