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About 300 drivers of the dirtiest and oldest trucks serving the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex gathered in Wilmington on Tuesday to support a program that would impose stricter pollution standards on harbor vehicles.
Port authorities and environmentalists were encouraged by the strong show of support for the program, part of a plan designed to cut air pollution 80% within five years by allowing only newer, low- emission diesel trucks to work the ports.
"It's a surprising turnout," said Rafael Pizarro of Coalition for Clean Air, an advocacy group. "You don't see this many truck drivers agree on anything outside of a strike."
Many of the mostly immigrant, Spanish-speaking independent drivers who filled an auditorium at Banning's Landing stepped up to a lectern and personally urged a joint panel of Long Beach and Los Angeles port commissioners to approve the program.
The proposed clean-truck program is part of the Clean Air Action Plan, which was approved in November. The program would scrap and replace the oldest trucks, and retrofit the others, with the assistance of a port-sponsored grant subsidy.
Among the speakers was Edgar Sanchez, 48, of Long Beach who said he could not afford to clean up his rig without a subsidy. Sanchez, who is among the area's 16,000 mostly low-income drivers who...