Will California crack down on rail-yard pollution?

 

Will California crack down on toxic pollution from rail yards? Community and public health groups are planning a demonstration at Friday's Air Resources Board meeting in Diamond Bar to demand that the state enact tough regulations on California's 18 rail yards.

Trucks, trains and cargo-handling equipment spewing diesel emissions in the yards have caused high cancer risks, according to recent studies.

Southern California authorities passed anti-idling rules on locomotives three years ago, but Union Pacific Railway and BNSF Railway got them overturned in court.

Railroads contend that state and local authorities have little power over them because they are part of the federally regulated interstate commerce system. They have signed voluntary agreements to reduce their pollution in California.

But community groups such as the Commerce-based East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice want the state to subsidize the purchase of cleaner locomotives and enact strict anti-idling rules. Rail yard gates, where trucks idle in long lines, should be relocated away from schools and homes, they say.

The Air Resources Board will examine detailed options at its meeting and hear testimony from the public and the railroads.

Environmental justice groups are battling pollution not just from rail yards but from the massive goods movement activities at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which handle 40% of the nation's containerized imports. Read more and watch the video above.

--Margot Roosevelt

Comments

[Alan]

Why is it that when it comes to cleaning up the place (planet), everyone starts screaming about losing jobs?

Why can't we clean up and create jobs at the same time? It seems to me that alternative fuels and vehicles should provide significant number of new jobs (maybe more than the current model).

But the problematic answer seems to be its easier to sit and complain while not changing a damn thing.

Why can't the solutions to the environmental problems be solutions to transportation and free market goods?

Answer: Oh know that sound like somebody would actually have to work or something. Can't I just zap it away with my video game.

Here's a news flash folks with all due respect to our software and computer engineers in the audience, Its a REAL world out there. These things won't fix themselves and if you think you can wait on your neighbor we've already lost.

[Regina Chagolla]

Why Wasn’t I Taught This?

"Science is everywhere!” Sonia, an 8th grade student from Oakland, CA said this after presenting her research entitled “Heavy Metals and Water Quality in an Urban Creek Watershed” to the 9th Annual Teachers of Social Justice Conference. What started out a year ago as playing in the creek has turned into a search to answer “Is this water safe for me to play in?” “That’s why I have asthma!” said a 4th grader from a Richmond elementary school after learning about the Chevron plant few miles away from the school and the three train tracks that surround his neighborhood. Students learned that school air particle pollution worsens asthma and increases hospital visits for children with asthma. “PG&E charges us to play our video games?” Asked a 5th grader after learning about sources of energy and energy consumption. As a teacher, I think about the ways I was taught science. I was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles and I went to public schools were I memorized parts of the water cycle, read about the layers of the atmosphere in our science textbook, and if our school was lucky enough to afford the materials we “played” with batteries and light bulbs. But the science lessons mentioned earlier allowed students to apply science concepts and skills in their lives. Science became relevant.

Angela Calabrese Barton, author of “Teaching Science for Social Justice” argues that traditional science education emphasizes “corporate values at the expense of social justice and human dignity." My job as an educator is to create curriculum that is relevant to my students and touches on environmental justice. Environmental justice is rooted in the belief that everyone has the right to a clean and healthy environment where we live, work, go to school, and play regardless race, gender, or income. Barton writes: “The marriages between capitalism and education and capitalism and science have created a foundation for science education that emphasizes corporate values at the expense of social justice and human dignity.” The alternative is creating science lessons framed around environmental and social justice concerns to transform students, schools and, communities, and science education itself in ways that promote justice and equity. As an Angelino I am excited to see that there is something being done about this. I want to know if and how are local public schools getting involved. I urge educators in the Los Angeles sub-cities to teach science that is transformative in which our students might see and use science. Students can then see the institutional and interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives.
Regina Chagolla is originally from Los Angeles, California, and is currently a second year graduate student at University of California Berkeley where she is pursuing her Masters degree in Education and California teaching credential. She currently teaches science in four different schools in the East Bay Area at a variety of grade levels.

[Kaycee]

I think this is such a difficult issue because relocating railways away from homes and schools in such a densely populated part of California would take a lot of time and money. I think the voluntary agreements are a good start, but it will be interesting to see how this serious issue is dealt with.

[Deandre Roberts]

this is a serious matter in the USA today.Since one of our current on growing dilemmas is Global Warming.Global Warming is contributed to by emissions such as the ones released by the rail-yards.We need to alter the emissions released by the rail yards.The government needs to step up and crack down on these problems for the sake of our world.Global Warming is causing the world to come to an end quicker and with the help of the rail yards we will be to that end much more faster.

[jklip]

I worked the Union Pacific Railroad in the late 70's till the early 80's as a switch-man. We delivered rail cars to local business in and around East LA. I can tell you that that area is just generally filthy. The air tastes like metal. Much of the land in or around those business's have had toxic chemicals spilled or dumped, intentionally or unintentionally, into the ground. I always got the impression I was working in a toxic pit. This area seems to be of the oldest industrial areas around. Imagine how it was abused back before anyone knew better.

[Engineer]

Looking at the outline of that neighborhood, it's really not going to be possible to clean it up completely. It's a medium size collection of houses located within a large heavy industry area. The pollution can and should be improved, but part of the solution is going to be buy houses and move them a short distance away. Even 1/2 mi outside that triangle is going to be better then being between 4 highways and a dozen train tracks. That's just no place to put your house, or to stay of the industry grew up around you. I wouldn't want to live there either. Modernizing the oldest, dirtiest equipment is going to be a win all around, but being inside 4 major highways the air is going to be bad, you can't fix that.

But anyone who does not think that an old, smoke belching diesel creates man-made pollution has got to be a whack job! Hook one up exhausting to where he sleeps and let Darwin's law go to work.

[Robert]

"Toxic" and "pollution" are two words that should never go together in a location even remotely near a residential area.

[Terry Gardner]

I'll look forward to reading what happened Friday at the meeting of the California Air Resources Board. In the meantime, thank you for this story. Someone's health shouldn't be determined by their zipcode. While another person commented on improvements in the air quality around our ports, we still need to go further. I'm glad I don't live near any train tracks. When I traveled in Europe last year I didn't notice any gray smoke spewing out, so there must be better technology we can embrace.

[A. Davis]

When people cannot sleep at night because of noise from neighbors, or get ill because neighbors dump crud into their are and water supplies, they are not environmental "whack jobs", they are people who once had good homes, and the rights to enjoy their homes, communities and lives was removed from them without their consent. These hard working people are being deprived of life (potentially), liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without benefit of law, or compensation for their losses. Anyone who favors Constitutional Law should recognize these basics.

The people who live near the train yards, ports and transportation corridors bear the brunt of the dangers, but none of are free from risk. The recent fires happening during normal onshore wind conditions, the airstream carried the smoke east affecting Denver, Salt Lake City and other places over 1000 miles away. Small particulates can cause heart, lung, blood diseases and birth defects. Small particulates float in breezes further than heavy particulate. The fact that conditions in our local air basin travel across state lines means that the Federal EPA should also be involved in trying to contain pollution from the ports and transportation of goods from the ports. Comments about improvement by the trains in cleaning up their locomotives and yard goats is correct, but these improvements came because of incentives from government, needs to increase fuel efficiencies due to costs, governmental laws and oversight.

The benefits from these improvements and other laws relating to clean air have real benefits in improving health of those who work in the industries, who live near and far from the impact areas. Additionally the budgets of State Health agencies do not have to face the impact of the assorted diseases related to pollution.

For the doubter, research at UCLA, UCI, USC and in Europe confirm particulate are related to diseases of lung/heart/blood (and one specific birth heart defect).

Oddly, the summer of 2009 produced the cleanest air in the Greater LA/OC basin, thanks to the work of the SCAQMD and the downturn in activity at the ports. Unfortunately the fires ended that clean streak. Regretfully we cannot expect businesses to continue improvements without a carrot and a stick. Even after the SQAQMD issued Hazardous Air warnings, one company that wishes to be known as GREEN, released pyrotechnics nightly at two parks in the basin, thus adding to the smoke and debris traveling east, in the same air stream.

[David Pettit]

Whoever wrote the CARB press release about today's meeting in Diamond Bar must have attended a different meeting than I did. What actually happened was that CARB staff was directed to think about an emission reductions program for high-priority railyards (San Bernardino, Commerce and West Long Beach) and report back in 120 days. No regulations were enacted or even discussed, although CARB staff has established the magnitude of the cancer risk from California railyards and proposed detailed solutions. What this means for the residents of the East Yards neighborhood is that they will wait many months before CARB even decides to do anything about the unacceptable cancer risk in their community.

[Craig]

The community was there before they started using toxics extensively by industry. The area was zoned industrial and people didn't fear living next to polluters because they were unaware of the hazard as well the fact that there were not as many toxics. The zoning laws of the 50's applied now is like using medical equipment from the 50's for an operation done today.
Also there are two parts to the Air Boards, local elected officials who serve on the board and the staff. The staff probably is made of of former industry employees , or that has been the experience in the Bay Area , with almost all of the staff and staff director coming from the oil and chemical industry.

[Dennis Davis]

Some have commented that the rail lines were in place before the houses came. Consider the Santa Monica line. The pier used to have a rail line running out on it, to assist in the unloading of cargo from freighters. And the nice, wide median strip on Santa Monica Boulevard is courtesy of the rail line that ran to Santa Monica and the West Side, until the 1970's. Most rail yards were established before the effects of locomotive emissions were known (consider the stack exhaust from steam engines, coal and oil-fired), or required environmental reviews. The Taylor Yard, near Boyle Heights, was in the worst possible place in terms of downwind air pollution flow. Ironically, that is becoming a park. The houses were there, they just didn't have a chance against "The Octopus," as the old Southern Pacific Railroad was known.

[D.Woodward Van Nuys.]

Very true,the line haul railroads in southern california ,are under federal jurisdiction.These green peace and other groups don't under stand that the state and local governments do not have any power to regulate them.

[Ken M]

Nicely done video.
But a little one-sided, don't you think? Previous writers have already written what I would have, so I can keep my thoughts brief.
I'd guess that the railroads were in place first, before the residential areas. People move to houses located next to highways, railroads, landfills, power plants, factories, all the time, and always know that the air pollution is there.
The railroad companies and port operators are working on the air pollution problem. Be happy that you are working with BNSF and UP; those two railroads are in the forefront (for railroads) of environmental awareness and involvement.

[Jill]

Nancy you are not correct in saying that trains do not shut off. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The majority of locomotives in the state have been equipped with idle reduction devices so that when the train is not in use it shuts the engine down after 15 minutes.

[ROE]

I agree with Bob in that this story fails to mention what the industry is actually doing to reduce emissions. This story makes it sound like they are doing nothing when in fact the railroads have made a tremedous effort to reduce emissions. The cleansest locomotive fleet currently available on the market has been dedicated to So California, devices have been put on locomotives to reduce idling as well as yard trucks and cranes. LNG yard trucks are being utilized, cleaner burning switch locomotives are operating in the basin but none of that seems to be reflected in the story. The story also does not mention that shipping by rail is much cleaner than transporting by truck and reduces congestion and wear and tear on our nations highways. Each train takes over 300 trucks off our highways. I look forward to a story that highlights the positive steps our transportation industry is taking.

[Nicole Duong]

I'm not at all surprised that these rail-yards are causing health problems. What I wasn't aware of was how much problems they're causing. I was also unaware of the fact these these trains don't ever "turn off" I believe that the anti-idling rule will be more difficult to overturn today since global warming and pollution has become a more major issue in the past couple of years.

Mr. Logan's efforts are commendable but I can't help but feel that these railway companies are very powerful and their only concern is how much profit they make.

This article has changed my mind set on pollution and global warming. I've always been the one to recycle and do "green" things here and there but after reading this article, I'm realizing that there is much more to this problem than landfills and not driving hybrid cars. What's the point of all that if these ships trucks and trains are 'causing 21,000 early deaths'?

[Jack Humphreville]

While the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are important engines for the Southern California economy, they also need to be cognizant of their impact on the environment and the surrounding communities that have grown up around the associated infrastructure. At the same time, the Ports need to be more efficient in the movement of goods out of the Port to either their final destinations or staging areas in the Inland Empire.

The Alameda Corridor resulted in the significantly faster movement of trains to downtown and the recent environmental regulations at the Ports related to trucks and ships have resulted in considerable improvement in air quality.

As the Ports and shippers along with the various governmental bodies develop a long term plan, they must take into account the impact the Ports and their traffic have on the surrounding communities, recognizing that there will additional costs, some of which can be offset by greater efficiencies.

[Ricardo Mendoza]

Of course we want to encourage more business into our dense, environmentally challenged communities. So long as they care to have some semblance of being Green, understand that air pollution exist and of course, though perhaps sparsely sharing the equation with some natural occurrences is an overwhelmingly signifiant man-made factor. If some comments weren't so hilariously unconscious, they would not be worth a reply. What planet denial is he and/or others in agreement on? Look up Asthma statistics in school children near freeways in Los Angeles for one. Simple Test-turn a good flashlight on somewhere dark pointed up into the sky at night inside and outside and look at the light beam. If in a clean air zone, then step into the hot zones on the chart. Commerce, Boyle Heights etc, it is ridiculously small particle filled (most dangerous). It is only what you can see and they aren't snow flakes.

Thank you for this thorough work of awareness impacting our communities and to Mr. Angelo's efforts. We all need to care about this now.

[bob coale]

Your article in today's Times fails to mention the great strides the ports, truckers, and others are taking to reduce diesel pollution by using clean-burning natural gas for their vehicles. Indeed many firms have spent millions upgrading their vehicles and building natural gas fueling stations. BNSF in Commerce is preparing to test a hydrogen fuel cell locomotive; the City of Commerce is now constructing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) dispensing facility in that City; the Ports charge a fee for non-clean burning vehicles; recent Federal grant stimulus funding has gone to large truckers to switch to natural gas. Let's have an article that presents this side of the story.

Currently there are about 6000 heavy duty vehicles in the south coast that burn either liquefied or compressed natural gas. Of these about 2000 are heavy duty transit buses, another 1500 are refuse trucks and the remainder are heavy duty haul trucks (semis).

[Craig]

Container ships make shipping almost free for Asian manufacturers. In the old days before containers there was less international trade party because shipping was 20 percent of the cost or more. With containers the cost is down to 2 or 3 percent, peanuts in the world of manufacturing. When you pick something up off a shelf in say KMart figure 2 or three percent of the items cost and that's what it cost to get it here . Pennies on a dollar as they say. One Container can hold thousands of items at a time and may cost $3000 to get here. A good book on the subject is 'The Box : A History of Containers" by Marc Levinson.
I stand in line at a giant retailer and see a wave of imports coming through the check out , cashiers, like waves crashing on the shore over and over again. The people in China make about 1/20 th what we make here and their cost of living is equally 1/20th.
Manufacturers , importers and retailers are getting a big break , you could say manufacturing from China is comes "free shipping." But of course the communities near the docks pay a price.

www.cleanenergyrm.org

[Joe Lyou]

ARB has an important opportunity to address one of the most urgent environmental health problems in California at tomorrow's meeting. The goods movement community groups deserve congratulations for their hard work on protecting their neighborhoods. It's good to know that they'll be at the meeting letting ARB know that their agency must do everything possible to reduce this public health threat.

[Jessica]

This is a powerful piece detailing the human cost of moving goods and cargo from the point of entry at the ports of LA and Long Beach and the routes taken to deliver these goods to the rest of the country. The graphics really shed light on the scope of the air pollution problem in the greater LA region. Thank you for covering this issue, air pollution affects us all.

[janet gunter]

Thanks to the LA Times for an attempt to educate the uninformed and uneducated public. And, a special extension of gratitude to Angelo Logan and his supporters for attempting to minimize human exposure to toxins and the irresponsible actions that are affecting the lives of thousands. It is not uncommon to experience opposition to truth when it involves drastic change, a shift in belief pattern, and/or potential deprivation of things that provide comfort, profit, and simple convenience. I'm sure that there are still a few that believe that the "world is flat." There certainly was a ground swell of support for that some years back too. History proves the point over and over. Thank God people are starting to "get it". Although, it has taken way too long.

[David Pettit]

Here is a link to the Air Resources Board's health risk assessments of all the major California railyards: http://www.arb.ca.gov/railyard/hra/hra.htm. The data in these reports is scary. We'll see on Friday whether the ARB will do what it takes to fix the statewide problem of toxic air pollution from railyards.

[joe markota]

Enviromental Wack Jobs have run amock. This is a time when you should be encouraging companies to come in the area not try to shut them down. And based on what Junk Science that has a theory that there might be man made polution?Never has the left wing neo nuts been able to prove their out of the main stream theories. How many companies have been forced to leave because of this? Nuff Said!