Westsiders want cleaner air now

The California Air Resources Board convened a public meeting Thursday Wednesday night at City Hall to talk about air quality around BNSF Railway's yard, and several residents showed up to protest the air pollution there.

We'll have a full story in the print edition. The gist of the meeting was that the people who have to breathe the emissions around the rail yard were unhappy with the timeline for planned clean up efforts. To them, targets for emissions reductions expected to be met in 2015 or 2020 are set too far in the future.

Many at the meeting did not seem to be satisfied by regulators and BNSF's comments that existing technology does not allow for dramatic reductions to be achieved now. BNSF's assertions that several cleaner-burning vehicles have been brought to the San Bernardino yard since 2005 were also not enough to mollify the crowd.

A health-risk assessment has shown that people living near BNSF's San Bernardino yard face elevated cancer risks. The clean-up plan is still a work in progress.