"SAN PEDRO, Calif. -- If there's a computer on your desk, a Sony television in your den or a pair of Nike sneakers on your feet, you're connected to Pier 400 at the Port of Los Angeles here."

"Sprawling nearly 500 acres and dotted with 10-story blue cranes, the pier is the hub of the biggest U.S. port -- and the generator of some of the nation's worst air pollution from ships, trucks and trains lugging containers stuffed with electronics, furniture, clothes and cars.

A decade ago, diesel exhaust swathed the port and neighborhoods just outside its fence in a deadly blanket of soot. Regulators calculated that the port's neighbors faced cancer risks so high that physicians dubbed the area the "diesel death zone.""

Jeremy P. Jacobs reports for Greenwire April 11, 2013. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"A Busy California Port Seeks to Grow, but a Neighbor Objects" (New York Times) [3]