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Talking Freight: Environmental Protection Agency's Ports Initiative

June 17, 2017

View the June 2017 seminar recording

Presentations

Transcript

Nicole Coene

Good morning and good afternoon depending on where you are. Welcome to the Talking Freight seminar series. My name is Nicole Coene and I will moderate the seminar. Today's topic is the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Ports Initiative. I want to let those of you who are calling into the teleconference for audio, you need to mute your computer speakers or you else will hear your audio over the computer as well. Today we have five presentations being given by:

Sarah Froman has led voluntary and regulatory initiatives to advance the measurement and mitigation of mobile source emissions since joining EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality in 2005. She recently co-chaired the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee’s Ports Wworkgroup and continues to play a lead role in EPA's Ports Initiative. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University and a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Lee Kindberg is head of environment, health safety and sustainability for Maersk Line in North America. Maersk Line is the world's largest container shipping company, Dr. Kindberg co-chaired the EPA Ports working group from 2014 to 2016 and has served six years on the EPA Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC). She has been active for over 10 years in the Clean Cargo Working Group, a global group dedicated to assessing and improving the environmental impact of shipping. Dr. Kindberg has a BS in chemistry from the University of Alabama and a doctorate in chemistry from University of South Carolina. She joined Maersk Line in 2005.

Susan Monteverde is Vice President of Government Relations at the American Association of Port authorities where she has worked since September 1999. AAPA is the leading voice of public ports in the United States. She leads the public policy efforts associated with port-related infrastructure, water- and land-side, security and environment. US seaports handle $6 billion in goods each weekday and are a critical part of this nation freight network. She was a nonvoting member of EPA Ports Initiative working group.

Erik Neugaard is the environmental program manager at Broward County Port Everglades. He has 30 years of diverse experience as an environmental scientist, planner, and educator. His education includes a BS in natural sciences in zoology from USF and an MS in Marine biology from NFU Oceanographic Center. He is certified as an environment professional, planner, ecologist, wetland scientist, wildlife biologist, endangered species observer, hazardous material manager, hazardous waste site operation supervisor, GSI professional, remote-sensing mapping scientist, photogrameterist, scientific tri-mix scuba instructor, UCG Master Captain, and Florida Master Naturalist Program Instructor.

Amelia Pellegrin is the Director of Sustainable Development for the Port of New Orleans. This newly formed division leads environmental compliance, permitting, and sustainability initiatives. It is establishing land use planning, GIS and safety programs at Port NOLA. She joined the port in 2013 as the port's first environmental services manager, spearheading the development of an ISO 14001 compliant environmental management system and attaining Green Marine Certification. Amelia Pellegrin brings 16 years of experience in environmental consulting, program development, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability solutions for government agencies. Currently she is a member of the EPA Ports Working Group federal advisory committee and on the Board of Directors for the Traffic and Transportation Club of Greater New Orleans. She is a certified planner with a bachelor of science in biology from Emory University and a Masters in city planning and environment policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated to the speakers and the final 30 minutes for Q&A. During the presentation if you think of a question you can type it into the chat area. Please make sure you send your questions to everyone and indicate which question is for which presenter. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start the question-and-answer session with the questions typed into the chat box. If time allows, we will open phone lines for questions as well. If we run out of time and are unable to address questions we will attempt to get written responses from the presenters.

Presentation used in the seminar are available for download in the file download box in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. The presentations will also be available online within the next few weeks along with a recording and the transcript. I will notify all attendees once these materials have been posted online. Talking freight seminars are eligible for 1.5 certification maintenance credits for AICP members. In order to obtain credit for today’s seminar, you must have logged with your first and last name, or if you're attending with a group of people you must type your first and last name into the chat box. Detailed instructions on how to obtain your credits are available in the AICP website. If you're not AICP members but would like to receive PDH credits for this webinar, please note that FHWA doesn't formally offer PDH’s, however it may be possible to receive PDH’s for your participation in Talking Freight if you're able to self-certify. To possibly receive PDH please download the agenda from the file download box and submit this agenda to your respective licensing agency. Finally, I encourage everyone to please also download the evaluation form from the file share box and submit this form to me after you fill it out. Now I’m going to turn it over to Sarah Froman of the US EPA to get started.

Sarah Froman
Thank you, Nicole, and the rest of the FHWA team for hosting this webinar on EPA’s Ports Initiative. And to all the other speakers for sharing their perspectives and projects related to the Ports Initiative. I'm going to give an overview of the Ports Initiative and try to tie in the topics that other speakers will cover in the webinar. I wanted to start off by saying just a few words about the importance of addressing air pollution at ports, which I know Susan Monteverde will touch on as well. Ports are incredibly important to the US economy and the businesses and the American consumers who rely on the services that ports provide. The diesel engines that operate at ports: tugboats, cranes, trucks they are the work horses that make it all possible. But, these diesel engines also produce a significant amount of air pollution.

Approximately 40% of US ports are located in or near current nonattainment or maintenance areas for the Clean Air Act's National Ambient Air Quality Standards. But that's only part of the story, because nearby community and worker exposure to high levels of diesel emissions can occur at all ports.

There are a large number of Americans who live near ports and work at ports who can be exposed to levels of air pollution that can harm their health. Many port communities include a high percentage of low income and minority populations who are often disproportionately impacted by higher levels of diesel emissions. Port traffic is expected to grow in some areas which could potentially exacerbate air pollution problems if we aren't proactive. At the same time, we know we need to address air pollution at ports, we also know that infrastructure updates and expansion are also sorely needed at many ports. While this isn't easy work by any means, we do see enormous opportunities to advance next-generation, clean freight infrastructure - Including clean technologies and improved operational strategies - that can provide for safe and efficient goods movement that the economy relies on, while also reducing costs and harmful health impacts.

This is our vision for the ports initiative. To continue to work in partnership with port stakeholders, to find solutions and make progress in a way that improves environmental performance and economic prosperity. EPA has been supporting voluntary efforts of ports for over a decade. In recent years, we've heard from port authorities, vessel operators, state governments, communities that there was a need for even more EPA support in this arena. A few years ago, we hosted a national conversation with port stakeholders which was a series of web listening sessions. These listening sections were followed by an in-person port stakeholder summit in Baltimore. Ultimately, we convened a formal federal advisory committee workgroup in August 2014, which Lee Kindberg will discuss, to advise us on elements of a voluntary program that would meet the needs of our varied port stakeholders.

Since receiving the advisory workgroup’s report last September, we've been carefully considering their recommendations and identifying ways we can enhance our current work in the Ports Initiative, which fall under these five areas. The first being helping ports to capitalize on funding for clean technologies. Providing technical resources to help identify smart infrastructure investments. Promoting port community collaboration for effective planning. Increasing efficiency through federal government coordination. And finally creating a knowledge clearinghouse for ports stakeholders. I want to highlight some current activities under each of these areas.

So, first, we heard loud and clear from stakeholders that funding will be crucial to initiating more clean-air projects. We are capitalizing on the long-standing Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program or DERA, which is already been instrumental in supporting projects at ports. The program has awarded over $123 million to clean diesel port projects and another $55 million to multi sector projects involving ports. This year's RFP opened in April and will close July 5 and supports efforts to reduce air pollution at ports. Before I move off of the topic of funding, I also wanted to mention a significant new source of funding for diesel emissions reductions at the state level stemming from the US government's recent settlement with Volkswagen. These settlement funds, known as the NOx Mitigation Trust, are $2.7 billion over the next 10 years. EPA has no control over the trust funds that will be managed by a third-party trustee, and states and tribes will make the decision on how to spend their funds among the eligible project types. There are a number of port-related projects that are eligible for the settlement funds such as vessel shore power, repowering and replacing port drayage trucks, rail switchers, ferries, tugs, and cargo handling equipment. State can also choose to use their settlement funds for any action eligible under DERA. We anticipate that many states will put funds towards this DERA option.

One exciting technical resource is the emissions inventory and scenario analysis work that we are working on with the Port of Everglades which Eric Neugaard will discuss a little later. Just in short, this partnership with Port Everglades will help develop methods, lessons learned, practical examples that EPA can share with other ports and also inform our future efforts to develop new port inventory tools. I also wanted to mention two other technical resources. The first is our National Port Strategy Assessment, which examines current and future emissions from a variety of diesel sources operating at ports and explores the potential effectiveness of a range of emissions reduction strategies that are currently available, including zero-emissions, electric technologies; replacing older diesel fleets; operational improvements to reduce idling; and switching to cleaner fuel. The assessment found that there are effective strategies available today for every type and size of port.

Another resource: we've also conducted a more detailed assessment of shore power, which we released in April. Shore power systems can be used by marine vessels to plug into the local electricity grid, and turn off diesel auxiliary engines while at dock. Shore power is an eligible project type for both DERA and Volkswagen mitigation funding. This report can help applicants evaluate the strategy and estimate the potential emissions reduction benefits for those purposes. The first part of the report looks at technical and operational characteristics of shore power systems around the US. And the second part of the report includes a new methodology for estimating emissions reductions of from shore power systems. There's also an accompanying calculator tool on our website.

We are also developing and piloting resources to help promote community and port collaboration. You will hear shortly from Amelia Pellegrin about a project in New Orleans to pilot EPA’s draft community port capacity building tool. With these tools, we aim to support the kind of proactive and positive collaboration that we think will ultimately help ensure timely and effective infrastructure developments. We had a great response from over 20 near port communities and ports to our recent solicitation for partners to pilot these tools and while we selected three to work with initially, our Ports Initiative team members in EPA regional offices across the country are exploring ways to work with other interested communities and ports outside of these formal pilot projects.

We've also heard from stakeholders about the importance of improving federal coordination. And the Committee on the Marine Transportation System is really an ideal venue is for tackling that work. CMTS coordinates maritime transportation policy between 25 federal agencies and organizations. And EPA is actively engaged in a number of CMTS workgroups such as the Marine Energy and Air Emissions Working Group and is providing input as CMTS updates the National Strategy on the Marine Transportation System, which last came out in 2008.

Finally, on communications, we are continuing to enhance our ports initiative website and monthly newsletter so it can serve as a knowledge clearinghouse for all our ports stakeholders with information on best practices and funding and other resources. Our website has additional information on activities I've discussed today and more. I would encourage you all to sign up for the newsletter from that site. It will keep you up-to-date on our progress. I also invite you to keep in touch with us. We look forward to hearing your questions and ideas during this webinar. I have a few colleagues in the room here with me today and several more I know who are participating remotely. I encourage you to drop us a line at talkaboutports@EPA.gov with questions you have after the webinar. We would love to hear about the work you're doing and help connect you with the resources and other partners in this space. As I mentioned before, in addition to headquarters team members, we have representatives from each of EPA’s 10 regional offices on the Ports Initiative team. We would be happy to put you in touch with the right team member. Thank you very much for joining us today. I will hand the baton on to Nicole or Lee at this point.

Nicole Coene
Thank you, Sarah. Now we’re going to move on to Lee Kindberg of Maersk Line. Lee?

Lee Kindberg
Thank you, Sarah, and Nicole. The slides are still coming up on my screen but we will get started. As Nicole mentioned, I'm with Maersk Line which is a large ocean carrier and I represented ocean carriers on the ports working group. But I also co-chair the group with Sarah and I will be talking from that perspective today. I was also a member of the EPA advisory committee’s responsible for this work, the Clean Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC) and the Mobile Source Technical Review Subcommittee (MSTRS).

As Sarah mentioned, EPA recognizes the need for expert advice on how to identify and meet the many and varied needs of the port stakeholders and addressing air pollution. From goods movement in and around ports (and again let me stress that this definition of port is not just the port authorities, but everything that moves into and out of those ports), and the communities that are impacted by that. In August 2014 EPA formed a ports initiative work group of leading port industry, community, and government experts. The workgroup was formed under the Mobile Source Technical Review Subcommittee (MSTRS). And that is a subcommittee of the Clean Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC), which is much easier to say if you just say CAAAC (“kay- ack”). The CAAAC was chartered in 1990 under the Federal Advisory Committee Act or FACA to advise EPA on critical air quality policy issues. Both during face-to-face meetings and through specific work groups. This was one of the specific work groups and the reports derived from that have to go through both the MSTRS (Mobile Source Technical Review Subcommittee) and the CAAAC for approval. This approval process included very interesting question and answer sessions, and additions and a few edits before finally sending it on to the EPA Administrator.

The ports initiative workgroup included leading experts representing port authorities, marine terminal operators, cargo owners, technology experts, marine carriers, rail and trucking operators, community groups, tribes, environmental groups, and state and environmental agencies. The workgroup also included representatives from other federal agencies like MARAD and CMTS and it benefited from support from staff in several EPA offices, including several regional offices as well as the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, the Office of Environmental Justice and the Office of Water.

The charge to the workgroup was as shown here on the slide. We were charged with providing advice on elements for an EPA-led voluntary program that would address some of the issues related to ports. We were also charged with defining how to measure air quality and greenhouse gas performance of ports and terminals within the ports.

As part of the work, we were asked to include several aspects. First of all, consider past recommendations from advisory groups. Look at existing port related environmental improvement programs like Green Marine and Smart Way. Consider ports in the context of the broader supply chain and not just as freestanding entities. And include information from EPA's other assessments both previous and those that were under development concurrently. We had a few in-person meetings and more teleconferences than I can count over the two-year period. The group worked conscientiously to create a report that really reflected the viewpoints of all workgroups members.

Ports are complex legal and operational systems. It is not just the port authority that we're looking at. Each workgroup member came to the port air quality topic with their own expertise and vantage point. We spent a significant amount of time discussing and learning about ports from those different perspectives. Remember, we are not talking about just the port authorities (which might be legal entities). Scope covered all movements into and around the ports and the stakeholders and communities and tribes that were involved and impacted. Ports are incredibly complex legal and operational systems and each has its own unique combination of geographic factors, legal and market requirements, and operators and participants. There are many actors at a port who can influence or be impacted by emissions from port operations. While port authorities are the common denominator and natural conveners, since they don't move, and they usually do not own, operate, or control most of the equipment and activities. This makes it -- it puts them in an interesting position of being the stationary and responsible entity but not actually controlling any of those operations themselves. This was an important thing that really influenced a lot of our recommendations to EPA because if you don't put something together in light of this reality, then what you do recommend will not be implementable.

Let me give you some examples of the four categories of participants that we really defined. First there is the port authority. This is typically a government established entity which may be a landlord port (which means that it owns the properties and releases them to others for operations). Or they may be an operating port. Or both. It has financial and legal responsibilities, typically they must show a profit. In other words, make money. There are environmental requirements for expansions and changes and as needed, due to policies by government or tribal agencies and programs, may have to obtain long-term permits and so forth. Some of them have and are developing environmental strategies inventories and programs. Because they are the entity that doesn't move and is there long-term, they are the natural conveners.

There are other port operators for example, marine terminals, where the cargo and passengers are loaded or unloaded. You may have private terminals, pilots, tugs and harbor craft, energy and fuel suppliers, dredging, and you may have on- or near-port railroads, warehouses, satellite port facilities, Coast Guard, customs and border patrol and other government entities also often operate on these sports.

Some authorities actually have private entities that might be manufacturing on their property. That was excluded from this study just to narrow it down to something that was more manageable. In terms of port facility visitors and users, that could include companies like mine. Ocean carriers, lake- and river-going vessels, barge services, rail carriers, trucking companies, supply deliveries, workers for all of those different entities. Passengers and military vessels may or may not be visitors to a given port.

And then in terms of others impacted, you have surrounding communities and tribes, other governmental entities, cargo owners, shippers and recipients, and of course there is the marine or land-based ecosystem and fishermen, offshore oil suppliers and recreational users. The list goes on. As you can see, very complex. We hear the comment very frequently, “If you’ve seen one port, you've seen one port. There are some common characteristics but also quite a diversity of activities and responsibilities at the different port authorities.

We delivered our report to EPA this past September. Approved by the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee. It includes over 30 recommendations and this slide groups them into six categories. Our overarching recommendation was that EPA’s program should provide the funding, technical resources and expertise that is sorely needed to help port stakeholders identify and implement clean technologies and efficient practices that can meet both environmental and economic objectives.

We recommended that EPA focus on six key areas. That is guidance on emissions reduction strategies, both technologies and operation strategies, and work toward streamlining and testing implementation of new technologies. Guidance and tools to support the development of inventories and metrics. Measurement and science-based decision-making are critical to this work. Then there's increasing and targeting funding. Federal and state funding has been very effective like the DERA program. There are others that have been very effective in reducing diesel emissions and should be continued and increased.

On the community side, port engagement is essential. EPA feels we can support this through tools such as the draft capacity building tool Sarah mention and that Amelia will be discussing shortly. Cross governmental coordination will also be key. EPA programs should align with and leverage the many federal and other programs to better support environmental improvement in and around ports. And then there's effective communications, which will be absolutely essential to success and sharing of best practices. And now let me turn it back to Nicole.

Nicole Coene
Thank you. We’re now going to move on to Susan Monteverde of the American Association of Port Authorities

Susan Monteverde
Thank you and for those of you who know me, sorry my voice sounds a little different, but I'm happy to be here today. I want to thank EPA and DOT for inviting me to speak on the port authority perspective on ways to address air pollution at ports. AAPA is the collective voice of the seaport industry in the Americas and, as was stated in my introduction, I've been involved in the EPA Ports Initiative pretty much since the beginning. I was at the Baltimore meeting and also was assigned to be on the advisory group. I did a lot of reading. We read through a lot of drafts. What's really important I think to understand and you heard a little bit about this ends Sarah's presentation, is the importance of seaports to our economy. A lot of people don’t really see ports so they don't recognize the support we get to the US economy. It's estimated that 26% of the US economy is related to seaport cargo coming in and out. We handle about six plan dollars of imports and exports a day.

That's a lot of cargo that comes in to or leaves a port before it gets to its final destination. The key connecting modes for freight are truck and rail. Although we would love to see more short sea shipping, right now truck and rail our primary modes. This is why we are here today as part of the Talking Freight series. To talk about how this key transportation node is important to the nation as well as to deal with the environmental impacts they can have especially on the local communities.

There's a strong partnership between public ports and the federal government and ports hope this will be reflected in the president's $1 trillion infrastructure plan. As you can see on the slide, seaports are seeking $66 billion in federal support over the next decade to keep America moving. And while you might not think infrastructure investments address and environmental challenges, programs that move cargo more efficiently and quickly often result in decreases in port emissions. The EPA advisory report addressed this by supporting efficiency programs that can address other challenges like truck backups and pollution coming off trucks or ships. Intelligent transportation programs can also mean less emissions. We need to think a little broader than just infrastructure and think about how this can help the environment.

Not a lot of people have been to seaports. I grew up in a seaport community in Philadelphia and I'm not sure I knew we had a seaport until I came to this job. We have a variety of seaports. There's a saying in the area that if you see one seaport, you've seen one seaport. A lot of people know about container ships. That's what gets a lot of attention. Seaports also bring cars in and out of the United States through what we call Ro-Ro where they drive the car to the ship, heavy equipment as well. A lot of exported farm equipment, that comes out of the US. Coffee, fruit, electronics and other household goods. We handle both imports and exports and all create American jobs. Whether it’s in the transportation sector, construction sector, energy production (both for alternative and traditional sense), oil has to come into the United States, and there's a slide here that shows some of the wind energy components that are imported through seaports.

We are involved in a variety of things and we also support a lot of US manufacturing with bringing goods that they need for manufacturing and exporting goods. I just wanted to remind people that seaports are vital to bringing food and edibles that we don't grow here. Just imagine a lifestyle without coffee or without chocolate. Or without a lot of the fruits and vegetables that come from Latin America and South America. Seaports are really vital to our lifestyle.

I like this slide because it really shows some of the infrastructure issues and the locations of a lot of seaports. We often are in urban areas and are dependent on a lot of the waterside where the ships come in, and that's where I'll talk in a moment. Where some of the heavy pollution has been noted in seaports. We also have a lot of our yard equipment that we've been doing a lot of work on trying to make sure it's cleaner fuels, and then we have the connections. How do we get this cargo into and out of the port and that's a lot of the land side connections that you see? The rail and highways. All of those things are things that ports look at. EPA has been helpful through its DERA grant program we heard about before. There's also the congestion mitigation and air quality or the CMAQ funds that go to states primarily. Occasionally we see that funding go to ports. We would like to see more of it because we are in very congested areas right now. While our members are making a lot of investments, we would like to work closely with the feds and with the states to try to make sure that these communities are addressed quickly.

This is just another picture showing how a seaport is part of an urban area. Our nation grew up around seaports and we have a long history of international trade going back to the nation's birth as such. Some ports are located in congested urban nonattainment areas or are close to neighborhoods that have grown up close to a port. By the way, not all ports are nonattainment areas for air pollution. I think Sarah had a quick slide that she might have gone over quickly but it showed, about half the ports are in nonattainment but others are not. They might have a neighborhood that lives close by. Ports have really made great efforts to coexist and work hard to address a variety of environmental issues. Both on the waterside, and air related. As well as community concerns that result from their close proximity to the port.

Now who is AAPA? We’ve been around for a long time. As an Association, we are over 100 years old. We have a very robust environmental committee. And that committee provides a space for collaboration and exchange of best practices in the environmental arena. Many of these best practices you can see from our website. They are highlighted through our committee environmental improvement awards, which began in 1973, 44 years ago. So, for over 44 years, ports have been looking at environmental issues. Not just air issues. Some were water, but we have a very robust committee to look at this. The AAPA environmental committee is also a forum for ports to discuss the air related programs that work, what hasn't worked, and how it might be helpful to various ports. They also have committee meetings and seminars that focus on air emission challenges at ports. Most of these really are port authorities talking to port authorities which is why the EPA program is a little different.

This slide shows the main types of popular port air emission reduction programs. Some of the larger ports have already done air emission inventories, especially those who are in nonattainment areas for air quality. Many found that the ships were the largest polluter. I think you will find that later in the Port Everglades presentation on their air emissions inventory.

Several ports, especially those on the West Coast started incentives for ships to slow down before entering the port and some ports also looked to shore power and incentives for ships to use alternative fuels. Concern was so high that AAPA joined others in supporting the creation of the emission control area, under MARPOL Annex Six for the US and Canada that we now have enforced. It requires ships to use lower sulfur fuel. With the strictest standards coming into effect in 2015. The impact of ECA cannot be over emphasized. Through regulation, the EPA has been able to make improvements in a very short timeframe. That will impact some of the future decisions that ports will make, whether they want to spend their focus and their money on ship emissions which ECA is addressing or if there are other types of things. One thing about the ECA is that it does not address some of this climate change pollutants. So, some people are still looking for shore power, especially for cruise ships. Although a lot of the crew ships are moving to a scrubber technology, or using alternative fuels like LNG. Ships really have made great strides in the last few years on addressing ship pollution.

Trucks are another challenge for ports. They've used incentives, legal requirements and efficiency improvements such as port appointment systems that are just being started right now in some ports. Yard equipment is another area where improvements have been made, including electrifying equipment and also rail related emissions where you might electrify some of the locomotives. DERA programs have been really helpful in this.

Ports of been involved in other programs that lead them to determine what to do best as well. You will hear a little later - Amelia might talk about - in her introduction we talked a little about the port of New Orleans has been involved in green marine and the ISO 1401 environmental management system. Other ports have done that as well. Ports are really, very interested. Some of these environmental management programs are bigger than just air emissions, but they look at all of the issues and then decide what the most important things that folks have to do.

When a port decides what to do about air emissions, they will look at a variety of things. They will look at the community priorities or their general priorities. In some cases, the community’s priority would not be air emissions. It might be water quality or it might be just taking the trucks and separating them from the local community because they don't want - it's not a pollution issue but more of a truck traffic issue. They don't want trucks moving through their ports. When ports are making investments, they have to look at what their local community is interested in.

They also look at ports close to neighborhoods. Is the port in a nonattainment area? As I mentioned about 50% are, 50% are not. So, most of the larger ones are in nonattainment areas but that's a question and they have to work with their states on what the limitations are. Do they have an air emissions inventory and how far out do they go on that? Is the port a landlord or operating port? Most ports in the United States right not, especially the largest ports, are landlord ports but there are exceptions. Georgia and Virginia are operating ports but most of the other ports lease out their facilities. You have a different type of program because you have to incentivize the terminal operator to do some work. That's important to look at. Is there rail or barge service readily available? A lot of ports’ rail is considered normally a way to reduce truck traffic, however you might not have on-dock rail readily available.

One of the things we talked about in our advisory committee is what is the ports contribution to the overall air emissions for the area? Often the community looks at port authorities but doesn't realize, we have a very small part of the emissions coming from a seaport generally. We are public agency so they often look at that. That affects how long / how far should the port’s responsibility extend? Trucks are coming in and going out. Some think it should be at the gate and others that it should be farther out, maybe the first resting point for that truck.

When ports make decisions, they really look at how to leverage their own funds. A lot of this comes from federal and state funds. I mostly put federal activity here. A lot of times states will also give funds to port authorities. I can't overemphasize the importance of the EPA diesel emission reduction grants. Part of that goes to the states, part is held federally. The state program - we don't see as much port money going under the state-controlled money. We would like to see more of that. We would like to see more of the DERA money overall going to ports. It's really not the majority of money going out to seaports. We would like to see more of it. Yard equipment, drayage trucks, which come out of the port and go to maybe a distribution center back and forth. Shore power, rail locomotives, these are all paid for from the DERA program.

As I mentioned, the congestion mitigation and air quality funds which are controlled they go out to the states under the highway program. We've seen a few things, we've seen container-on-barge, we've seen shore power, we've even seen an occasional electric crane, but we don't see very many CMAQ funds. If you're concerned about congestion mitigation you would think more of that should look at what the ports have because the ports have a lot of trucks coming in and out. The FAST Act, there are freight funds as I mentioned. If we can improve efficiencies of freight moving through seaports we can also have an added benefit of having less pollution. And then as Sarah mentioned, the Volkswagen emissions settlement fund, that is controlled by the states. The port operations are eligible. We really would like the states to seriously look at that and see how they can give some of those funds to the port authorities to deal with those issues.

Let me end by talking about the value of EPA’s Port Initiative. As I mentioned, AAPA has done a lot for the environment, but we’ve done it mostly by talking to our members and we like that the Ports Initiative brings stakeholders together on a national basis to talk about improved environmental performance. It aids in the understanding of all parties. Not just port authorities talking to port authorities but port authorities talking to community leaders, to state environmental folks who control a considerable amount of freight money, and that's an advantage, and we will hear a little about their resources that they are working on. On this slide, I show the national port strategy assessment that EPA put together and that outlines a lot of the issues that ports are dealing with in their solutions. They have a great website, it’s a one-stop shop for all parties.

So, with that I will turn it back to our moderator.

Nicole Coene
We will now move on to Erik Neugaard.

Erik Neugaard
Good afternoon everyone. I am waiting for my slides. I have only been with Port Everglades for six months and I am very thankful to have this opportunity to share with you what I have learned while I have been here.

We have started an air emissions inventory at the port. This slide shows the different ports that have conducted recent air emission inventories. Is not an unusual action, as you have heard from others. We were the first in Florida to conduct one and the first to voluntarily partner with the EPA to do ours. In our partnership with EPA we are working to develop activity-based baseline inventories for facilities and operations; emission reduction scenarios and inventories for future analysis years; methods, lessons learned, and practical examples that EPA can share with other ports, related agencies, and stakeholders to support and encourage sustainable development. Our 2015 baseline inventory is available at the link shown on the slide.

Regarding the geographic domain. We have both landside and waterside facilities. Our landside port facilities are shown in this graphic. Hopefully large enough on your screen to be able to see some of the details. We also have our marine side domain which extends three nautical miles offshore and for the purpose of our inventory, we included all of the activity within our county limits for Broward County.

The different sources we have of emissions at the port include oceangoing vessels, harbor craft, cargo handling equipment, on-road vehicles, and locomotives.

For the oceangoing vessels, they are comprised of auto, bulk, container ship, cruise, general, roll-on roll-off, which includes vehicles and vessels sometimes, and then tankers. We are a very significant petroleum port for Florida. This slide shows the distribution of calls at Port Everglades in 2015. The bulk, 40%, is container ships, but we are a very large cruise support as well with 22%. The rest being 15% general cargo, 13% tanker, and 10% others.

Even though cargo represents 40% of the calls and cruise was 22%, the cruise ships do produce the largest volume of emissions at the port. That is because while they are here, they keep all of their systems operating. It is basically a hotel in the port with all of their air conditioners and all of their systems running.

We developed some recommendations for the oceangoing vessels to reduce emissions and that would include reducing emissions during transit and hoteling, vessel speed reductions, using alternative fuels, at-birth emissions reduction, and integrating emission reduction technologies in oceangoing vessel applications. We have also considered what is called “cold ironing”; that is providing shore powering to the cruise ships. Unfortunately, we can accommodate as many as 10 cruise ships at a time and it is very cost prohibitive to provide the shore power. Recent estimate was $40 million just to provide the shore power for two ships and each of those ships would have to do approximately $1 million worth of upgrades to be able to accommodate it. Until technology advances, it is not an option we can consider at this time.

The second category are harbor craft. This includes assisted tugboats, articulated tug barges, pilot boats, tug boats, and yachts. This graphic shows the distribution of our harbor craft. A large percentage (56%) are yachts. We are in the yachting capital of the United States. We have a significant volume of them that do dock at the port. We have large freighters that come in and actually sink down, the large yachts over 100 feet will drive into the freighter and the freighter then comes back up, and they are able to ship the yachts to different destinations. We have tugboat operations as part of the normal port operations at 21%, and the articulated barges at 16%.

Some of the recommendations we have four harbor craft include repowering and upgrading the vessels, and applying for consumer grants to help subsidize repowers.

The third category we have is our cargo handling equipment. That includes the gantry cranes, forklifts, and other items on the ground. This graph shows the distribution of that equipment type. Large percentage (45%) is from forklifts, yard tractors at 32%, and top loaders which is another piece of equipment that is used to move the containers at 11%. Then a few other types of equipment with smaller percentages.

Some of the recommendations we have for the equipment include upgrading with the latest diesel or electric power. Installing reefer plugs to replace power packs, apply for consumer grants to help subsidize equipment replacements, and maintain equipment records for future air emissions inventories.

For the on-road vehicles, those include heavy-duty trucks, cruise passenger transport vehicles, and port-owned fleet vehicles. The recommendations we have for them include upgrading the trucks, idle reduction, installing diesel oxidation catalysts.

And last we have locomotives. We have the Florida East Coast Railway Intermodal Container Transfer Facility. And for the locomotives, we are very fortunate that the East Coast Railroad has the tier four diesel engines for all of their locomotives they use in the port. There is not too much we can do with that right now.

Our 2015 baseline results are shown in this graph. I do want to mention that we had 95% participation of our tenants. That is quite remarkable. We are going to use these results to evaluate effective technology and operational strategies for the future. You can see the different priority pollutants here and where the bulk of them come from. In all cases, the majority is from our oceangoing vessels. Which include the cruise ships and the freighters. Smaller percentages from some of our cargo handling equipment, harbor craft, and on road vehicles.

From a regional perspective, the port, as mentioned previously, is not a significant contributor to some of these priority pollutants. We are looking here at how port Everglades relates to the rest of Broward County in 2015.

One of the reasons we want to look at this voluntarily is that we are going to be expanding the port. The population of Broward County (as for all of Florida) has been steadily increasing since 1970. As has the size of the vessels. We are getting ready to deepen our entrance channel and other areas of the port to accommodate some of the larger Post-Panamax Canal vessels, and we want to make sure that we do not have any significant increases in emissions as a result of that expansion. We are doing everything we can to mitigate for that.

Cruise vessels are also increasing in size since 1970. We currently have four of the largest cruise ships in the world calling on port Everglades. They are basically floating cities, not just hotels. When they are in port there are significant emissions and we are trying to find ways that we can minimize that.

That is all I have. I have my contact information here if anyone would like to reach out to me with questions. I will be available to answer questions afterwards. This presentation which is available online has the links to our air emissions inventory which can be downloaded.

Thank you.

Nicole Coene
Thank you, Eric. We’re now going to wrap up with the presentations from Amelia Pellegrin of Port of New Orleans.

Amelia Pellegrin
Good afternoon. I want to first acknowledge that many of the slides and photographs are provided by Sabrina Johnson from EPA. I will talk briefly about the overall background of these community capacity building pilot projects with near port communities and ports, and then discuss a little bit of our initial experiences so far and what we hope to be the final successful outcome for the Port of New Orleans and our community partners.

Many folks on this webinar have already discussed the background here in the national conversation with port stakeholders. Lee and Susan have talked about where this pilot project came from. Listening sessions and the national port stakeholder summit, as well as the federal advisory committees. I sat on the EPA ports workgroup for the last several years, along with Lee Kindberg and Sarah Froman and Susan Monteverde and we are excited to be part of the discussion. The Port of New Orleans is newer to the arena of air quality programs for ports. We have done a lot in the last several years, which I'll talk about, but we are not in an area of very poor air quality. We are in attainment for all of the criteria pollutants. Our interest in getting involved in air management was really from a community standpoint. From managing what we can ahead of having regulations that will impact us.

The near port community capacity building project’s purpose was to get ports and their nearby communities on the same page with regard to how to work collaboratively. The foundational components of this are a set of stakeholder engagement and capacity building tools (which I will also give a brief overview of). They are also posted on the EPA ports initiative website.

I should mention, with regard to this pilot project and these capacity building tools, these are not air-centered. While they were developed by the office of transportation and air quality, these tools are to aid both communities and ports in addressing environmental justice issues, whatever those issues may be for the specific port or community.

These three tools in draft are available on the ports initiative website. Through the pilot project, we are piloting the use of these tools here in New Orleans. We have comments and edits and reactions and we hope folks from this call will also review them and share those comments, edits, and reactions with EPA.

Just to give you a quick overview, the three draft capacity building tools are the ports primer for communities, this is an interactive tool and reference document that characterizes the port industry sector, including environmental and community health impacts associated with port activities. The second one here is a community action roadmap. This is an implementation for the ports primer for communities that provide a step-by-step process or framework for building capacity in preparing community stakeholders to work better with their port authorities and then the environmental justice primer for ports. It's designed to inform the port sector of other perspective, priorities, and challenges that are often unique to communities with EJ concerns. The EJ primer is also structured a little bit in the same vein as the primer for communities and providing a step-by-step guidance to improve the effectiveness of port and community engagement and addressing concerns of nearby communities.

The capacity building pilot project opportunity: EPA solicited interest from ports and community and of the nearly 2 dozen ports and communities who responded to the call for interest, there were three pilot projects communities and ports selected. We are one of the three, New along with Savannah, and Seattle. I should note that all three of us in terms of ports and nearby communities are different. We in New Orleans have had a long history and some very recent history of very negative conflicts between communities and government, and in many cases, here between communities and the federal governments with a high level of distrust when it comes to communities and future plans and big infrastructure projects of state and federal government. And local as well. This is not a grant program itself. This is technical assistance that is provided by EPA through regional staff and headquarter personnel, as well as EPA contractor, Skeo solutions. The goal of the program and the three pilot projects is to enhance skills for building relationships, to develop joint action plans, and to help refine the toolkit content (the three documents we discussed on the prior slide).

Just a little bit about the port of New Orleans. We are a landlord port. We are in attainment for air quality. As a state agency we are a public port authority. We directly employ about 300 people but we manage all of the green area shown on this map. This is not green space. The green area on the map is showing Port of New Orleans jurisdiction which is maritime industrial property. We are a diverse port and handle containers and other break-bulk cargo. We are a large cruise port and we also manage a large area of industrial real estate along the inner harbor navigational canal - also known as the Industrial Canal - here in the middle of the map.

Our clean-air programs are relatively new, along with our relatively new environmental programs. The port is an active member of the AAPA and we are green marine certified. With the assistance of EPA funds through the DERA program started up a clean truck program which has really helped gather some momentum around voluntarily clean-air initiatives here at the port. With that funding, we started up more stakeholder discussions specific to air. This is separate of the pilot project. It feeds into our interest and our long-term goal of being more engaged with our neighboring communities. We have electrified cranes, and an anti-idling program that has just started. We also are doing some of the container on barge movement to get some of the trucks off the road and reduce some of the roadway congestion at the port especially between here and Baton Rouge.

We have recently completed an emissions inventory piloting a tool developed by Transport Canada, the Port Emissions Inventory Tool. We hope to be able to share more publicly soon through green marine and other methods. We piloted the use of that tool so that other US seaports could also take advantage of that helpful methodology. Many of our tenants and operators also have clean-air programs in the works. One that is rather significant is our New Orleans public-built railroad which is another publicly held agency-installed anti-idling automatic start-stop technology on their switcher engines which reduces a significant amount of emissions locally. There's a lot happening.

We are also in the midst of developing a master plan for the future of the port. This tagline, “our connections run deep,” has become the theme of that plan. We are connected to global markets, we are connected to the local economy, both from a job creation sampling and revenue generation. But we’re connected to the community as a neighbor and resource for more than 120 years and to the environment, physically, as the gatekeeper to over 30 miles of urban waterfront here in our three parish jurisdictions.

Our challenge, which is not unique to the port of New Orleans, this is a US seaport-wide challenge, we are physically walled off from the communities we border. In New Orleans, this is more distinct because we have this large flood wall. Ports have been isolated somewhat from the communities we neighbor. The picture on the left is historic New Orleans when everybody had a family member essentially that worked on the docks. Today we are essentially very much disconnected from our communities. Part of our interest in this pilot project was to help make that connection again.

Our participation in the EPA pilot project is an opportunity for internal capacity building. We recently (in April) just held a two-day kickoff meeting which was kind of a needs assessment meeting with EPA and their contractor. This photograph here is actually showing the EPA regional headquarters, regional and headquarters staff, as well as the contractors. Also, senior port staff from directors and up discussing how the port could benefit from more capacity building internally and how we can learn better how to interact, how to also manage expectations of our community partners in terms of how we can jointly work on solutions, versus joint decision-making. As a legal entity of the state entity, we are limited in what we can do as far as public process. We are limited in terms of what we can do as far as directing our tenants operationally, what goes on at the port. We see this as an opportunity to raise the awareness level within our organization on how to more effectively interact with our neighboring communities.

During that 2-day initial kickoff meeting, we also participated in both a port tour and neighborhood tour with the community partners that are part of the pilot project. We really see this as a learning experience. One of the most successful potential outcomes of being a participant in the pilot project is to really have a better awareness level, both within the port and within the community of each other, abilities, of each other's challenges, and of ways we can effectively work on the future together.

This is my contact information as well as Sabrina Johnson's contact information. We don't have an action plan just yet. That will be the next step coming out of the pilot project. We are hoping that it serves to build much stronger relationships between the port in our neighboring communities. We are hoping that coming out of this process we will gain the ability to move forward in the green marine certification process, by developing some outputs that meet the requirements for impact mitigation through the green marine certification framework.

Thank you again for having us today and hopefully we will have more news going forward as we move through the pilot project.

Nicole Coene
Thank you, Amelia. Now we will start off the Q&A session with the questions posted online. In addition, if you have a question that you would like to ask over the phone, please press *one on your telephone keypad to be placed in queue. We will open up phone lines mixed in with the questions online.

Our first question, for Susan: Is progress being made in short-sea shipping initiatives, what are the obstacles?

Susan Monteverde
Thanks for the question. Short-sea shipping, as many of you know, is to take more of the cargo and when it comes into a seaport put it on a barge or small ship and take it to a different destination. The Maritime Administration at DOT has been working on this and is being a great cheerleader for that for several years. It is something that has been a challenge. There are definitely success stories. The Virginia Port Authority has a very active short-sea shipping barge operation with the Richmond Port Authority, they actually took over that port to make sure that t worked more efficiently. They are an operating port so they can do that. Baltimore and Philadelphia have some barge traffic going back and forth, but there have been some real challenges. Part of the challenges are, first of all, gas prices are very low for trucks. You also have a lot of terminal operators where the stuff is coming in on the big container ships. They want to get that cargo out as quickly as possible and barge operations are never going to be a significant portion of container terminals. That's been a problem, especially because you have to make sure that you use a crane to put it on the barge and that's very costly. So, labor costs can be part of it. Also, the problem with returning empties has been an issue with what you charge for an empty return. The biggest problem you have is with just-in-time delivery. No shipper wants to really take the chance on short-sea shipping unless they know for sure that the service will be better and cheaper, and will actually occur. The main port authority is doing a lot of work on short-sea shipping and MARAD continues to have some grants. There's also the inland waterway system which is a natural short-sea shipping program. We think of it as coastal, but really we have one of the best inland waterway systems in the world. We continue to think of how we get more stuff on the inland waterway system as well. Ports are interested in supporting it, but we've seen both successes and some failures as well.

Nicole Coene
Thank you, Susan. Question for all the presenters: Do presenters have experience with terminals or authorities trying to extend nearby rail lines to create new or revived on dock service? Locomotives versus dray-dock traffic could be tough trade-offs for near-port neighborhoods. Even if rail is overall more emissions efficient than truck.

Susan Monteverde
This is Susan. Some of our members have looked at on-dock rail. As the questioner noted, it can be a challenge for some of the local communities. I think ports are working hard to make sure that the locomotives are electrified. They are also trying to make sure that the trains are loaded, that they don't cut off traffic, and several Tiger grants have gone to their rail side Pascagoula for example, got an on-dock rail Tiger grants - which is the DOT grant program - to move some of the rail lines so it wouldn't interfere with so many of the intersections. I think it is a challenge. It's not the panacea for everything and ports are looking to that but they understand there are some community issues involved in that as well.

Amelia Pellegrin
This is a timely question for us in terms of our master plan. We have a Tiger funded intermodal unit that was just completed last year on dock. We are also looking of ways we can reduce the roadway congestion on both interstate and local roads. And creating another potential near dock intermodal yard is one of the questions where we are grappling with in our master plan. There is no one sort of single silver bullet solution here. Either way, we are going to be impacting neighboring communities and businesses, whether it is truck traffic and congestion or whether it is at grade will crossings which we have an abundance of in New Orleans.

Lee Kindberg
Perhaps I could throw when one thing. We see it from the waterside but I have a sister company that operates marine terminals and when they built a new terminal in Norfolk, Virginia, they provided both a dedicated freeway exit, and on/near dock rail trying to get trucks off neighborhood streets to the extent possible. Sometimes when you're dealing with an older terminal area, that requires significant infrastructure changes that also might be objectionable to the communities. It's a tough choice when you're talking about upgrading these older facilities.

Susan Monteverde
Let me just add, this is one of the challenges for the FAST Act money (the freight program which Congress started a year or two ago). While we were excited to see that there was freight money, there were real limits on multimodal freight investments. That was a concern to us.

Nicole Coene
Thank you everyone. A question for Eric: cruise ships from Holland America and other cruise lines can use shore power already as they used shore power on West Coast ports. Has Port Everglades looked into accommodating those cruise ships that can already use shore power?

Eric Neugaard
Yes, we are looking into that. One of the problems we have is the way our electrical system is set up, to be able to provide shore power at our docks. We have to put in another substation and that's what cost the $40 million. It's cost prohibitive at this point but we are looking at alternatives. It is definitely something we are considering that for the future. The cost is the definite barrier right now for us to implement it at this time.

Susan Monteverde
I'm a liaison with our cruise committee and we often have seminars on this issue. As Eric mentioned, the cost for electricity sounds easy but it really isn't because you have to normally build a substation. Also, places like Florida, they have prevailing winds that go out. So, the question is, what are you really getting for your dollar. In California, they do it, first of all, it’s regulated, but the winds are coming in. They do want to protect the population. In a lot of the Florida ports, even if you had shore power, it's a very expensive thing and when you look at where would rather spend my money, would it be on coral protection, would it be on water issues, would it be on air protection, port authorities have to make some hard choices to look at what they are getting for the protection money that they are using.

Lee Kindberg
Those are good points. Another consideration is that if we were to provide shore power, we are basically displacing the problem. We are putting the problem in the neighborhoods that have the power plants. That's where the emissions would be generated. Those are all considerations we are looking at. We also have to look at how it affects the communities in which the power would be generated.

Susan Monteverde
Additionally, a lot of the cruise ships are already moving to what they call scrubber technology because of MARPOL Annex Six. Those scrubbers are greatly reducing their air pollution already. They are also looking at LNG. There are several cruise ships that are using alternative fuels. Shore power is one option but it's a very expensive option and you have to look at what are the cruise ships doing to address their own air emissions as well and which works the best. In California, it's mandated so you can't do anything about it.

Sarah Froman
This is Sarah Froman. Everyone has made good points about shore power but I want to highlight that the question of emissions impacts, EPA’s shore power assessment does have one useful feature which is you can estimate roughly what the electricity grid emissions would be when you use the shore power. That's one feature of the tool. The reason why we developed this assessment was just so port stakeholders will have in their hands some useful information to evaluate if it's the right fit to address air quality pollution at your ports.

Nicole Coene
Thank you everyone. Eric, another question for you: in your bullet “install reefer plugs to replace power packs”, can you describe the power packs? Are they diesel powered generators? Do you have a sense regarding how many ports and terminals still use diesel fired power for reefer containers?

Eric Neugaard
I believe those are shore power packs but as a mentioned before I've only been here six months and I haven't had to deal with that issue. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that, but if someone would like, I can look into it more and respond by email.

Lee Kindberg
This is Lee Kindberg, perhaps I can step in and help here. When the refrigerated containers come off the vessel, and onto the port, most ports have some sort of electrical infrastructure so that you can plug in what is basically a big refrigerator and keep it cool while it's waiting to be loaded onto a truck or on the rail. There may be seasonal or growth issues such that there's not enough plugs for all the refrigerated containers that might have to be accommodated at a given time. These are the same gen-sets that travel with the refrigerated containers as they go out on the rail or on a truck. They are diesel generators. Occasionally ports do have to use these gen-sets either to accommodate that seasonal or growth issue.

Amelia Pellegrin
This is Amelia. I can echo that. We have actually significantly invested in the infrastructure for about 500 to 600 more reefer plugs to get away from diesel gen-sets with our terminal operators.

Nicole Coene
Thank you all. One more question for you, Eric: Does the Port of Everglades have a sense of the size of the heavy-duty vehicle fleet?

Eric Neugaard
We had a consultant do the study for us and I can get that information from them. I know we have it, I just don't know what it is offhand. I apologize for that.

Nicole Coene
If you want to follow up with me, I can pass it on to Charles who asked the question. Amelia, a question for you: What is the role of the Coast Guard relevant to port operations and changes?

Amelia Pellegrin
They hold a regulatory role for the port. The port authority of New Orleans we are not a regulatory agency per se, the Coast Guard is involved in inspecting and regulating the safety and security of both the land side and waterside facilities related to the MARSEC rules.

Nicole Coene
One last question in the chat so I want to encourage anybody, if you have a question, please type it in or press *one on your telephone to be placed in queue and have your phone line un-muted. Question: Typical talking freight participants work for transportation at all levels, and most focus on land rather than water. Do the speakers have suggestions of sure fire emissions reduction projects that transportation agencies should propose for joint implementation with their ports to jumpstart more collaboration?

Sarah Froman
This is Sarah Froman from EPA. I will plug our National Port Strategy Assessment, which outlines strategies that are available today and explains the potential emissions reductions. One finding was replacing older diesel equipment with a really good approach, a strong approach for emissions reductions.

Lee Kindberg
This is Lee. If I could recommend, if you're looking for best practices, you can look at the environmental reports by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach where they've made significant progress in reducing air emissions and there's also several good practices that are happening at Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Often they do involve changing out older diesel equipment both on road and off-road. Then things like some use shore power and others have chosen other routes: vessel speed reduction, clean fuels, those kinds of things.

Susan Monteverde
This is Susan. The last slide on my presentation shows the report that EPA put together on all the different types of air emissions programs that are out there. I also mentioned in my presentation that states have a significant control over the CMAQ money, over the VW settlement money over some of the Fastlane money, this could be intelligent transportation, appointment systems at ports, things like that. How do you take some of your resources - and even the DERA funds, 30% go to states? How do you take your funds and try to marry them on many of these voluntary programs that you see that seaports are interested in doing and are very interested in trying either through port efficiency issues or through what we will call traditional of environmental programs, congestion mitigation, and things like that? Those are things I think states can really look at - how much of their CMAQ money are they actually using if they have a port in their area? How much of their VW settlement money are they planning to use? There is a lot that can be done. The feds seem to be taking the lead more than the states, but the states control a lot of that money.

Amelia Pellegrin
This is Amelia. I want to add from our perspective, partnering with the state, we’ve had a long relationship with both the Department of Environment Quality as well as our MPO, the local regional commission here in New Orleans. In coordinating with both the environmental side with the state Bureau, we just were awarded additional $400,000 for our clean trucks program here from the state. To add to our existing EPA grant. On a local planning basis, I think one takeaway I've gotten from coming into the port as a planner and now having worked here for 3+ years, I think oftentimes some of the disconnect is that transportation planners (and that's why I'm happy to be a part of this webinar series) is that we are not as well versed in the needs of freight. So, our partnership with the regional planning commission has been and continuous to be extremely valuable to the Port of New Orleans. We are working with them on a number of joint studies regarding movement of freight on rail, regarding congestion, and they been an excellent partner to us. They actually wrote and developed the port’s anti-idling programs. There are a lot more opportunities for ports to work with other jurisdictions in long-term planning.

Lee Kindberg
Let me jump in from the private industry standpoint. DERA funds cannot come directly to a company like ours. We've participated to excellent effect in several DERA programs that were being operated typically by port authorities, and sometimes by coalitions within a given area. We cannot apply for these funds on our own. It has to be in cooperation with a government entity or a nonprofit. Don't assume that companies know about this and don't care about it. We may not know either what's available or we may have ideas but haven't realized there may be funding out there. There are some real opportunities for better communication and cooperation and collaboration between government entities and the private community in terms of doing things that, in some cases are definitely not rocket science, but it's a matter of getting our act together and getting in applying for it.

Nicole Coene
Thank you everyone. We gotten through all of our questions and I don't see more coming in. I think we will close out. The recorded version of this event will be available online within the next few weeks on the talking freight website. The next seminar will be July 19 and the topic is still to be determined. Registration is not yet available, but once it is I will send a notice to the freight planning listserv announcing registration availability. I encourage you to join the freight planning listserv if you're not already doing so. Thank you to the presenters today and for everyone attending. Please enjoy the rest of your day.

Updated: 7/28/2017
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