Regarding “A’s make room for ships in estuary ballpark plan” (May 5): The ultimate threat to commercial maritime activities at the Port of Oakland may not be related to the size of the turning basin in the estuary, but the proximity of people to the industrial operations in place.

New condo owners would eventually tire of the clank, clatter and fumes associated with the sizable metal recycling concern upwind from the proposed project, the ship berths adjacent to that, and the hundreds of diesel trucks that rumble through the area daily.

The Oakland A's and the Port of Oakland are moving closer and closer to a preliminary agreement on building a new ballpark at Howard Terminal. However, concerns about this project continue to crop up.

Whether worries from the shipping community or wondering how to handle an influx of people, KCBS Radio, KPIX-5, and Chronicle Insider Phil Matier speaks on the issues that a new ballpark could create.

The Oakland A’s, after claiming the team would privately finance its new ballpark, could receive a taxpayer subsidy worth tens of millions of dollars.

Once again, government officials are preparing to spend public money to try to keep a professional sports team under the false rationale that it would boost the local economy. We’ve seen this play before: Taxpayers are still paying off debt for stadium improvements that brought the Raiders back to Oakland in 1995.

Perhaps the hottest clash in the Bay Area baseball world since the 1989 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s was interrupted by an earthquake is peaking now — the $600 million-and-counting, privately financed proposal by Oakland A’s owner John Fisher to build a stadium at Howard Terminal in Jack London Square.

This proposal is backed by politicians and real estate developers. It is opposed by environmental groups and many trade unions led by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents dockworkers and boatmen. Ostensibly, maritime and railroad companies also oppose building an A’s stadium in the port.

A new coalition took to the steps of Oakland City Hall Thursday to formally announce their opposition to the Oakland A's plan to build a new stadium at the busy Howard Terminal. 

The "East Oakland Stadium Alliance" claims the proposal would result in the loss of thousands of living wage jobs at the port, but the team says none of the existing operations would be lost -- just moved to another piece of property at the port. 

As a group of maritime and trucking union leaders push for the Oakland Athletics to build elsewhere,

the A's are backing two bills in the state Legislature that would make it easier to construct a 34,000-seat ballpark at the waterfront Howard Terminal.

Meanwhile, A's President Dave Kaval said negotiations between the Major League Baseball franchise and the Port of Oakland for control of the site just north of Jack London Square — as well as between city and Alameda County officials for buying the site of the current Coliseum — could wrap up in the next month.

The Port of Oakland’s maritime industry is raising red flags over the Oakland A’s new waterfront ballpark plan,

saying the 34,000-seat stadium and housing project would pose both a safety risk to ships and a threat to the port’s future as a major, regional economic engine. “Between the traffic congestion it will bring, the navigational risks it will pose to shipping vessels and the land-use conflicts it will create, there’s no way for this project to proceed without doing irreparable harm to Oakland’s working waterfront,” said Mike Jacob, vice president at the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and a leader in the coalition of port workers, bar pilots, truckers and cargo terminal operators who are bringing their concerns to the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners.

Let’s start this month’s commentary on a sporting note.

I love baseball. I love the memory of my first major league game and seeing a guy named Mantle hit a tenth inning home run over Fenway Park’s Green Monster…and over the head of a guy named Williams, Boston’s about-to-retire left-fielder, that cloudy September afternoon back in 1960. I love the slow pace of a game that affords fans ample time to converse and comment and analyze each move before every pitch. I love the rituals and terminology, both ancient and new that place the game in a broader context of American life. I love the old war movies where suspicious GIs challenge possible German infiltrators by demanding they describe a Texas-leaguer. I love knowing the players on the field will likely retire without brains scrambled by repeated concussions. And now I love watching the Red Sox live in HD so clear I think I can recognize old college classmates several rows up in the stands in Fenway.

If the A’s take shortcuts that endanger public interests and the environment, they will lose support.

Fielding a winning baseball team is hard, but all teams have to play by the same rules. Building on the Bay shoreline is also hard, because we’ve wisely created rules to protect what we treasure for the public’s benefit.

Those rules preserve natural areas for wildlife, beaches and trails for recreation, ports and airports for commerce. When someone tries to avoid or bend those rules to build on the shoreline, it puts at risk all we’ve improved and protected around the Bay.

The Oakland A’s want to build a new stadium and 4,000 condos at Howard Terminal, plus one million square feet of retail and office space and a 400-room hotel. It’s a particularly challenging and complex location the Port of Oakland currently controls that is reserved for heavy industry and shipping uses, surrounded by a working waterfront employing thousands of people.

A bill introduced Friday would give the Oakland A’s new stadium project an essential designation it needs before construction can begin — but the team and its critics are at odds over the intent of the legislation.

The A’s said the bill from Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, would be a vehicle for ensuring that environmental justice concerns in the community surrounding their planned stadium — air pollution, water quality and the potential spread of pollutants in the groundwater — are addressed in the project.

But opponents, both industrial neighbors and environmental groups, said the team’s move is a way to bypass state regulations that typically apply to bayfront development.