“Diesel exhausts from operations at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach can cause cancer and birth defects and other reproductive harm.”  This is the alerts being brought to attention by a new series of billboards, posters and advertisements being posted around San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach, California.

 
The warnings are required under California’s 1986 law known as “Prop 65,” and are part of a 2008 agreement between California Attorney General Jerry Brown and 21 companies that do business in the port complex.  The “Safe drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act” requires that people be notified when they are exposed to carcinogenic or highly toxic substances, such as pesticides, lead, mercury, asbestos and diesel fuel.

 
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are California’s largest fixed source of diesel exhaust.  Symptoms of exposure can include headaches and nausea.  More seriously, long term exposure to diesel soot is linked to cancer, lung and heart disease, asthma, COPD and other respiratory illnesses. In California, it is responsible for more than 3,000 deaths per year.

 
Shipping and dock workers and longshoremen are at high risk for health problems caused by diesel exhaust.