The California Air Resources Board approved Thursday a first-in-the nation rule to cut emissions from diesel-powered trains.
SACRAMENTO -- The California Air Resources Board approved Thursday a first-in-the-nation, ambitious rule limiting rail pollution.
Locomotives pull rail cars filled with food, lumber, oil and other products through railyards near neighborhoods in Oakland, Commerce, San Bernardino and other California cities. Diesel exhaust is a health hazard. According to California regulators, diesel emissions are responsible for some 70% of Californians' cancer risk from toxic air pollution. The rule would curb emissions on a class of engines that annually release more than 640 tons of tiny pollutants that can enter deep into a person's lungs and worsen asthma, and release nearly 30,000 tons of smog-forming emissions known as nitrogen oxides.
For activists and residents who've lived in areas affected by heavy rail pollution, the fight for cleaner trains is decades in the making. Some activists would like California to go further, for example, to limit locomotive idling to 15 minutes. They are also concerned that increased demand from online shopping is causing more rail traffic that burdens communities.
Freight railways are an efficient means to transport the roughly 1.6 billion tons of goods nationwide across nearly 140,000 miles , much cleaner than if those goods were trucked, it said.
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