Long Beach picks green flag recipients for vessel speed reduction compliance

Long Beach picks green flag recipients for vessel speed reduction compliance    The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners on Monday awarded its first 'green flags' to more than 100 carriers and 333 individual ships under an environmental program that seeks to induce containerships to comply with a voluntary vessel speed reduction program into Southern California's two ports.
   The Green Flag Incentive Program, approved by the Long Beach board last fall, offers special recognition and as much as $2.2 million a year in discounted dockage rates to vessel operators that observe a 12-knot speed limit within 20 miles of the port. Reduced ship speeds decrease harmful air emissions in the harbor region, the port said in a statement.
   The Harbor Commissioners recognized the port's greenest vessel operators of 2005 in a special ceremony Monday, honoring individual ships that achieved 100 percent compliance and ocean carriers that achieved high rates of compliance in 2005. Beginning this year, ocean carriers that achieve a fleet compliance rate of 90 percent or better for all of 2006 will receive reduced dockage rates in 2007.
   'Our carriers are to be congratulated,' Harbor Commission President Doris Topsy-Elvord said in a statement. 'Many of our carriers have observed the speed limits voluntarily, even without the incentives.'
   In 2005, 907 individual ships called at the Port of Long Beach, completing 5,406 sea voyages in and out of San Pedro Bay, whose harbor includes the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, which also participates in the vessel speed reduction program. About 65 percent of all vessels complied with the limits of the five-year-old program.
   The harbor board also awarded special environmental recognition to six of the port's largest carriers for operating a fleet that: included at least two green flag ships; sailed 50 or more sea passages in and out of Long Beach; and exceeded a fleet compliance rate of 90 percent. They were: Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), 'K' Line, USS Vessel Management, BP Shipping, SeaRiver Maritime and Hyundai Merchant Marine.
   Seven other large carriers were also honored for operating a fleet that exceeded the average compliance rate in 2005: China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO), Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), China Shipping Container Line, Mitsui OSK Lines, Matson Navigation, Hanjin Shipping and Alaska Tanker.
   Port officials estimate that if all vessels complied with the program, the amount of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) produced by cargo ships would be reduced by nearly 550 tons a year.
   To put that in perspective, Southern California air regulators estimated that in 2004, ocean-going cargo ships emitted roughly 30 to 35 tons of NOx daily while docked or maneuvering in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. That's more than 12,000 tons of NOx annually.
   If the two ports achieved 100 percent compliance, the program would eliminate 4 percent of NOx emissions in Southern California.