Marinas at the Port of Los Angeles
The Port of Los Angeles features 15 marinas containing 3,736 recreational boat slips, located in San Pedro, Wilmington, and Terminal Island. More than 400 liveaboard boaters call these marinas home. As with marinas nationwide, marina waters at the Port may be affected by particular boating activities that can be easily avoided, such as:
-improper hull cleaning and painting procedures that can release metals into the water;
-oil changes and bilge water releases that may release polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) — a group of more than 100 different chemicals that are released from burning coal, oil, gasoline, trash, tobacco, wood, or other organic substances such as charbroiled meat) — into the water;
-illegal holding tank dumping that can release bacteria into the water; and
-illegal and inadvertent disposal of solid waste from marina docks and boat decks, resulting in trash entering the water.
Although some boating activities can contribute to marina pollution, responsible marina managers, marina staff, and marina patrons can easily help curb the pollution problem by selecting and applying the appropriate best management practices. The Port strongly supports the highly successful Clean Marine program, a certification program established and implemented by leaders in the marina industry. It provides education, outreach and guidelines on how to be environmentally responsible marina managers and boaters. Twelve of the 15 marinas at the Port have achieved Clean Marine certification.
