(The following story by Andrew Edwards appeared on the San Bernardino County Sun website on July 24.)
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A few dozen people released black balloons into the sky to simulate air pollution Thursday morning during a protest against diesel emissions at BNSF Railway’s train yard here.
The protesters let go of the balloons on Fourth Street. They faced the rail yard’s truck entrance, with the Ruben Campos Community Center as a background.
Helium carried the balloons from the Westside launching point into the sky, where a gentle breeze pushed the airborne messages to the northeast, toward downtown San Bernardino.
Members of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice coordinated the rally and tied orange tags to the balloons in hopes of finding out where they came down.
Coalition member Jan Misquez wants to use the balloons to map which communities are affected by the rail yard’s air pollution.
She figures that diesel emissions and balloons will be influenced by the same air currents, and people who find one of her coalition’s black balloons will be put on notice to air quality problems.
“It’s all of our air here. It’s not just this community,” she said.
The California Air Resources Board released a report in June that used mathematical analysis to show that people living near the rail yard face elevated cancer risks.
Simply breathing the air around greater Los Angeles means an individual faces a 1,000-in-1 million risk of acquiring cancer because of air pollution, according to the Air Resources Board.
The risk increases near the Westside rail yard.
Parents who live near the rail yard and attended Thursday’s event said they worry about their children’s health.
“Our kids get headaches, runny noses,” said Miriam Davila, a mother of two daughters. “They’re always coming home tired from school.”
The activist group insists that BNSF immediately bring in cleaner technology to its San Bernardino location.
“They have the equipment, they have the technology. We’re asking them to bring it here and use it,” she said.
BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said railway officials are trying to cut down on emissions. She said all switching locomotives used at the San Bernardino yard are equipped with technology that shuts down their engines to prevent idling for periods longer than 15 minutes.
Kent also said BNSF will scrap several older locomotives by 2010 and that for the past year, truckers have been required to switch off their rigs while they wait to be processed.
She predicted that air pollution at the San Bernardino yard will be cut by 65 percent by 2010.
Harold Holmes Jr., engineering evaluation manager for the Air Resources Board, said San Bernardino is his agency’s highest priority. Plans to reduce pollution are set to be released by fall or perhaps as early as August.
Homes said the agency is targeting a 70 to 90 percent reduction in emissions at rail yards by 2015.