Cement Plant OKd Despite Traffic Fear

A project to build a cement importing plant at the Port of Los Angeles has been given the green light by the city’s Board of Harbor Commissioners, despite the objections of Wilmington residents who say the factory will bring too many trucks into their community.

The board, however, did make a concession in granting the approval Thursday: It required that the company adhere to a written truck route proposed by the residents. The commissioners also voted to create a task force to study truck traffic in Wilmington.

The residents said they were pleased with the conditions attached to the cement factory permit, but cautioned that the truck route will be useless unless police and the port enforce it.

Without enforcement, said Peter Mendoza, president of the Wilmington Home Owners, told the commissioners, “the factories are going to go up and we’re going to get nothing but a bunch of nice signs and a map.”

Although the commissioners also voted to invite a representative from the Los Angeles Police Department to their next meeting to discuss the issue, the residents say police have too much else to do.

Residents would like port police to enforce the truck route, which directs trucks to use B and Alameda streets to get to the freeways. But port officials say their police have jurisdiction only within the bounds of the port.

Port Executive Director Ezunial Burts said the truckers who cause problems in Wilmington are those who drive there only occasionally, not the kind who will be making regular runs to and from the cement factory.

Although residents have said the factory will bring an additional 100 trucks a day into Wilmington, officials from Wilmington Liquid Bulk Terminals Inc., which proposed the cement importing factory, said it estimates only 50 more trucks a day. The company plans a 63,000-square-foot concrete warehouse that will be used to receive, store and distribute bulk cement products.

At the meeting, residents argued that the factory would only bring more trucks, more pollution and more blight into their already congested community. Complained Gertrude Schwab to the commissioners: “We get all the trucks and you get all the bucks.”

Ann D’Amato, deputy to Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, echoed the residents’ concerns. On behalf of Flores, D’Amato presented a letter to the commissioners, asking them to delay granting the necessary permits to Wilmington Liquid Bulk until the port comes up with a plan to combat the increased traffic.

After the commissioners voted to incorporate the truck route into the company’s permit, D’Amato said she would like to see the port make adherence to the route a condition of the liquid bulk company’s lease, which would give the port added leverage.

On the matter of the task force, D’Amato departed from the views of some of the residents, who said they didn’t think it would do any good. D’Amato told the board that Flores welcomed the creation of the task force, although she did say that she hopes the commissioners will consider holding up future projects until they include definite truck traffic plans.

Some residents, however, don’t want to wait for a task force to make recommendations.

“Study, study, study,” sighed Simie Seaman, president of the Banning Park Neighborhood Assn. “We need something in progress. We need action now. We could study until hell freezes over.”

Mendoza, however, said he supports the task force, and said after the meeting that he was pleased that the Harbor Department--for the first time, he said--even listened to the residents’ concerns.

“Coming from where we’re coming from,” he said, “it’s progress.”