San Bernardino rail yard has clean-up plan
Air pollution caused by diesel emissions at a major rail yard in San Bernardino could be significantly reduced in about a dozen years.
Harold Holmes Jr., engineering evaluation manager for the California Air Resources Board, said air quality officials expect to cut back on diesel particulate matter emissions by 85 to 90 percent at BNSF Railway's San Bernardino yard at some point between 2015 and 2020.
The reductions, he said, will be achieved through a combination of regulations and agreements with the BNSF. Air quality officials have zeroed in on the cancer risks posed by diesel pollution at railyards across the state through a process that Holmes said has no parallel in any other state.
"What we're doing with the mitigation plans is not being done in any other country," Holmes said.
A big part of the process is a study called a health-risk assessment. The Air Resources Board completed assessments for rail yards across the state. The study for BNSF Railway's facility in San Bernardino concluded that residents of the Westside neighborhoods that surround the rail yard face elevated cancer risks simply by living where they live.
Environ, a Novato-based consulting firm, completed a follow-up study for BNSF that outlines ways to reduce pollution at the San Bernardino rail yard.
The Aug. 21 draft report contains a more conservative prediction than Holmes' regarding pollution reduction at the BNSF facility. According to the Environ study, diesel particulate emissions at the yard will drop 76 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 even if the there is a gradual increase in freight at the San Bernardino yard.
Environ's report notes that BNSF has signed agreements with the Air Resources Board to switch to less-polluting locomotives and to use lower sulfur fuels in the Golden State.
BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said other measures intended to cut air pollution at the San Bernardino yard include the installation of anti-idling devices to prevent locomotives and other machines from burning fuel while not doing any actual work.
Kent said 99 percent of BNSF's switching locomotives used in California have already been equipped with anti-idling devices. She said the company will also use that technology on the San Bernardino yard's 13 diesel-powered cranes as well as trucks called "hostlers" that are used to carry freight around the rail yard.
One of the most significant pollution sources at and around BNSF's facility are the heavy freight-hauling trucks. Those big rigs are not under BNSF's control, but are subject to an Air Quality Board rule that requires truckers to drive 2007- or later-model rigs by the end of 2013.
Air pollution around the BNSF facility has also captured the attention of an activist group called Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. Members of the group have called for immediate clean-ups at the yard, and in July they unleashed several helium balloons from a park near the yard in an attempt to gauge how far airborne toxins fly from the rail yard.
A community meeting intended to provide individuals a chance to comment on the cleanup plan is scheduled to be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Oct. 1 at San Bernardino City Hall.
andrew.edwards@inlandnewspapers.com
Leave a comment