San Bernardino rail yard communities targeted for health study
Southern California air quality regulators are sponsoring an in-depth study to determine if the San Bernardino rail yard, a major inland hub of goods shipped across the U.S., has caused a rise in cancer and asthma in the neighboring low-income communities.
The study comes two years after the California Air Resources Board determined that diesel emissions from locomotives, big rigs and other equipment at the facility posed a significant health risk to thousands of residents living near the site, and that the facility posed the greatest cancer risk of any rail yard in California.
“This is an opportunity to finally gauge the nature and extent of the problem,’’ San Bernardino Mayor Patrick Morris said.
The San Bernardino rail yard is a 168-acre Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway facility operating around the clock in the heart of San Bernardino, a crucial transfer hub for big rigs and freight trains hauling cargo.
A federal appeals court last year stuck down an effort by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is sponsoring the new study, to limit emissions from the locomotives. The court ruled that the agency overstepped its authority, and that only the federal government can regulate interstate commerce.
The new two-year study will be conducted by researchers at Loma Linda University, and will determine the number of fatal cancer cases in the area from 1999-2008, and include a household and school-based survey to determine the prevalence of asthma and other respiratory diseases. As part of the study, Loma Linda also will provide medical treatment to residents affected by the emissions.
Related:
Rail-yard pollution: federal court rules agains air quality board
A new crop of eco-warriors take to their own streets
--Phil Willon
Photo: The study would examine effects of freight trains, such as this BNSF train headed up the Alameda Corridor to San Bernardino's massive rail yard. Credit: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times
The CARB study was completely FLAWED. Why is it still being cited as a "source?" If there are errors in one area, there are likely errors in others.
http://www.healthycal.org/arb-admits-rule-based-on-flawed-data.html
Posted by: dakota | June 22, 2011 at 07:28 AM
Chinese about to out with Thorium fueled, plutonium free, benign waste product reactors to power their electric bullet train networks, and associated electric powered infrastructures. The Chinese will 'daisy-chain' thess networks north to Siberia, east to Europe's boudaries, down to Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and out to China's seas. Oil will not be needed, or essential to this empire. Meanwhile, America is stuck on stupid, welded into a 'status quo' and goind deeper in debt to Asia every day just to maintain things as they are! Rumors of superiour metallurgy in China speak of a stainless steel-like material, without the use of nickel, perhaps to be used in Chinese cars, that would not rust as easy? Last longer? than Japanese, European and American built cars? China searches the entire gene pool of all Asia for the smartest, most physically fit, highest I.Q.'s they can find, then educates them for free, even encourages their inter-breeding, and sets them to gainful research for Thorium fueled safer reactors, super-steels, better agricultural practices, even Wind and Solat, Wave and Tidal technologies, all, neglected by America's corporatism! America owes $ 14 trillion to Asians. America1 Proverbs,22:7, you were so warned! The Asians come to collect! Very soon! They buy our land as we speak.
Air quality by diesel train tracks the least of America's worries! Having trains at all a more realistic thought. Soon, sooner than you think, all trains in America will be Thorium reactor/electricpowered bullet trains, built in China, sold on credit to America, for apiece of that very same land, room for Chinese immegrants, with "special" priveledges, by invitation of our own governments. It is so happening in modern America as we speak! Chek this out with a few Googles!
Posted by: Uncle B | June 12, 2011 at 05:22 PM
Don't forget us poor denizens of Barstow. "Worst air in SB County", thanks to the PM-10!
Posted by: Leonard C. Marshman | June 10, 2011 at 03:47 PM
The obvious solution is to shut down the railroads.
Posted by: Andy Eppink | June 09, 2011 at 08:15 AM
And we wonder why jobs are leaving California.......
Posted by: JJ | June 08, 2011 at 06:59 PM