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Plan to export coal from Port of Oakland blocked by city council

A PLAN to ship coal from the Port of Oakland has been blocked after a unanimous Oakland City Council vote to forbid the handling and storage of coal in Oakland.

Hundreds of people crowded City Hall - and demonstrated outside - as seven council members weighed the proposal by Mayor Libby Shaaf and Councilman Dan Kolb to bar coal and petroleum coke from Oakland.

Ms Shaaf and Mr Kalb argued these fossil fuels pollute the air and pose serious risks to workers and nearby residents, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

The new ordinance, which requires a second vote to be made final, would stop Oakland exporting coal from a terminal near the east end of the Bay Bridge.

It's become the focus of a heated political debate, infuriating environmentalists and labour leaders but supported by West Oakland residents who want the jobs.

Duelling demonstrators outside City Hall chanted, some waving red "No Coal Exports" signs while others demanded that the council support a project that could bring thousands of jobs.

Head of the eco-minded Alameda County Labour Council, Josie Camacho, decried recent mailers sent by Jobs 4 Oakland, pro-coal project group.

Developer Phillip Tagami has said that any coal ban could stymie and perhaps derail his Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal project, which the city approved in a development deal three years ago.

The shipping terminal is a key piece of a larger 130-acre development that Mr Tagami's company, California Capital & Investment Group, has undertaken at the long-defunct Oakland Army Base.

Concerns about the project surfaced in 2014, after Mr Tagami's shipping operator, Terminal Logistics Solutions, entered talks with four coal-mining counties in Utah.

Leaders of those counties promised to invest US$53 million in the Oakland terminal, on the guarantee that Utah coal would be exported from Oakland. In March Utah's Legislature approved the deal.