Port Truck Replacement Plan Flawed, Activists Say

A Port Authority plan to replace old port trucks with newer, environmentally-friendly models has been largely ineffective, local and national organizations say.

On January 1, a ban by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey went into effect on trucks made before 1994. Truckers who drove older models were given the opportunity to take advantage of a program set up by the Port Authority, which costs about $30 million in Port Authority and EPA funds, that provides grants and loans to those truckers who can’t afford a new truck.

But the plan calls for truckers – who are private contractors – to repay the loans, something clean-air advocates say many truckers are hesitant to do.

“That burden of buying a new truck is placed entirely on the drivers,” said Brad Kerr, a board member of the Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association. “They make very little money.”

Only 13 trucks have been approved by the Port Authority, according to a freedom of information request from non-profit organization Puget Sound Sage, part of the Coalition for Healthy Ports. Of those 13 approvals, only 11 trucks were delivered. The revelation raises questions not only about the feasibility of the plan, but about the structure of the port trucking system as a whole.

At the Columbia Waterfront, for example, the Port Authority leases the Brooklyn Marine Terminal to American Stevedoreing, Inc., who in turn work with dispatchers and trucking companies to haul shipments. The drivers get jobs through the dispatchers. Since they are privately contracted, drivers buy their own trucks, pay for the upkeep and receive no benefits or pension.

“Even if a driver does think he can afford a new truck, the maintenance will in all likelihood be short changed,” said David Mendoza, a policy analyst for Puget Sound Sage.

The Coalition for Healthy Ports maintains that the only way the system will work is if trucking companies begin to hire these truckers as employees rather than contractors. That way, committee senior communications officer Paul Karr said, the expenses won’t fall on the backs of truckers.

“We have a bad clean truck program,” Karr said. “We’re relying on low-income, vulnerable, primarily minority and Hispanic communities to clean the air.”

Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority, said the request, filed in October, was outdated. He added a survey of New York and New Jersey ports at the end of December found close to 200 trucks had been either replaced, “or applications have been received.”

“Totally false,” Coleman said of the 11 trucks claim. “The program right now, we think, is serving almost everybody that uses the port on a regular basis.”

Multiple requests to the Port Authority for updated information have not been granted, but according to the Port Authority’s response to the Coalition's request, 117 applications were submitted for 139 trucks, with 104 applications either declined, withdrawn, ineligible or incomplete.

Last year, the Port of Los Angeles instituted similar requirements and incentives to replace port trucks, but mandated that truckers be reclassified as employees of the trucking companies.

Proponents say the LA plan puts the responsibility on truck maintenance and replacement on the trucking companies, rather than the cash-strapped truckers.

"They're treated as independent contractors when they're really employees of the truck companies," said Councilmember Brad Lander, whose district includes the Columbia Waterfront. "We need to have the trucking companies on the hook."

At Lander's request, the City Council's Committee on Waterfronts held an oversight hearing last summer to address clean port issues, and in November, he sponsored a council resolution in support of U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler's Clean Ports Act.

Lander's office is also awaiting a response to their own clean trucks program request.

"I'm very concerned that it will be ineffective," Lander said. "I love the working waterfront, but I want it to be healthy, safe and clean."

Brooklyn is one of the most at-risk counties in the state for health problems resulting from diesel soot, according to the Clean Air Task Force, an anti-pollution non-profit organization. And port trucks are one of the biggest culprits, leaving areas like the Columbia Waterfront prone to high rates of asthma.

While not everyone in the community points to port truck pollution specifically as a major issue, some residents, like 76-year-old Barbara Brice, have noted a shift in air quality over the years. Brice, who has lived on President Street for 26 years, says she often smells what she thinks is smoke at night.

"Sometimes I go to the window to see if something's burning," Brice said. "But it's just in the air."

Due to the Port Authority's new regulations, Bronx truck driver Kirby Reyes, 38, was forced to quit his job as a port trucker after 11 years. He now transfers garbage from the city out of state, a job he says he hates.

Reyes' truck was made in 1991, and though he was rejected for a loan due to poor credit, he doesn’t foresee a situation in which he would have been able to pay it back.

“Why take a loan for $100,000? “ Reyes said. “The interest is too much.”

He then added, “If I had an opportunity, I’d go back.”