(The following article by David Danelski was posted on the Press-Enterprise website on August 29.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — State air-pollution regulators will reconsider their secretly negotiated — and widely criticized — deal with railroad companies to reduce locomotive pollution.
Responding to complaints from the public and various agencies in Southern California, the California Air Resources Board is holding public hearings on the deal and is scheduled to vote on it next month in an open meeting.
The air board’s staff announced the deal in June after negotiations that did not include a board vote. The agency regulates air pollution from automobiles, trucks and consumer products ranging from fingernail polish to lawn mowers.
The agreement, a memorandum of understanding, with Union Pacific Corp. and BNSF Railway Co. could lead to immediate pollution reductions because the railroads would limit locomotive idling times, use cleaner fuels and speed repairs of the dirtiest engines, supporters say.
The downside, critics say, is that if any local or regional agency imposes tougher regulations — as Southern California’s air agency plans to do — related parts of the agreement can be nullified statewide.
Trains account for more than 2 percent of smog-forming pollutants in Southern California. The concern among air-quality officials is that people living near rail yards may have greater risks of cancer and other illnesses because of the diesel soot from locomotives.
The deal requires the railroads to assess health risks at 17 rail yards and, by next year, identify strategies to reduce those risks.
“We think it’s good for California,” air-board spokesman Jerry Martin said. “It gets pollution we had no other way of controlling, and we get it right now.”
‘Poison Pill’
Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, a state air-board member, called the provision a poison pill.
“That is because, if anyone does anything, the railroads can walk,” said Loveridge, who also serves on the board of the regional air-quality agency, the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
“My current position is that they (the air board) need to send it back to take out the poison pill … and if the railroads won’t do it, then there is no agreement,” Loveridge said.
The public hearings — one in Sacramento earlier this month and another Wednesday in Commerce in Los Angeles County — is an acknowledgement that the air board staff’s approach was flawed, the Riverside mayor said by telephone.
Immediate Cuts
Catherine Witherspoon, the state air board’s executive officer, has said the deal gives California immediate pollution cuts from an industry that is mostly beyond the reach of regional and state regulations.
Lena Kent, a BNSF Railway Co. spokeswoman, said the diesel emissions from rail yards will drop by 20 percent. The railroads also will assess health risk and meet with people who live near rail yard to develop strategies to reduce pollution.
Kent said reaching the agreement would have been impossible if every air district in the state had occupied a seat at the negotiating table.
The termination clause — the provision Loveridge wants deleted — gives the railroads a uniform set of rules for California, she said. It would be too cumbersome to deal with a different set of rules for each regional air district, she added.
Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said the railroads have volunteered to make pollution cuts much faster than they will have to under federal regulations.
Termination Clause
Barry Wallerstein, executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said the termination clause could thwart efforts to impose tougher local regulations just as his agency is working on new rules to reduce health risks from rail yards. The South Coast district includes most of Southern California, including the Inland area.
Wallerstein had other objections to the agreement.
Much of the language is vague and contains loopholes, he said. For example, the clean-fuel rule applies only to locomotives filled in California, but it doesn’t require that a certain percentage of fill-ups to be in California.
The Air Resources Board hasn’t determined precisely how much pollution locomotives emit in rail yards so it will be difficult to measure progress, Wallerstein said by telephone.
Martin, the state air board’s spokesman, said it’s impossible to know exactly how much pollution comes from trains and other mobile sources, such as cars and trucks.
“We are absolutely convinced this is the wrong way to try to reduce railroad emissions,” Wallerstein said.
Neighbors Object
Teresa Flores-Lopez, who lives a stone’s throw from the bustling BNSF Railway yard in San Bernardino, agrees with Wallerstein.
State officials should have sought comment from the people who live near rail yards before they worked out the deal, she said.
Diesel soot often blows over the fence and across Fourth Street to her house, which her grandparents bought some 65 years ago. The situation got worse, she said, in the late 1990s, when the yard was expanded to also handle cargo transfers from trains to trucks.
“It’s just more pollution, traffic and congestion,” Flores-Lopez said, speaking above the roar of diesel trucks and the clanging of huge machinery sorting containers.
“It’s 24-7. Sometime the locomotives are right in front of the house, and it rattles and shakes the house,” she said.
Flores-Lopez, who is active with West Side Residents for Clean Air Now, sees the state deal as a way to block tougher rules. One proposed state law would require remote sensors to measure pollution just outside rail yards.
“CARB is letting them (the railroads) do anything they want to do,” she said, referring to the California Air Resources Board. “And they will just say, ‘OK, we did something.’ ”
Flores-Lopez said she and about six other residents who live near the San Bernardino rail yard will speak at the meeting in Commerce.
At least one air district has endorsed the deal.
Terry Lee, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area’s air district, said her agency objected to the closed process used to reach the railroad agreement.
But the provisions to cut idling and require cleaner fuels will reduce diesel pollution, she added.
“Those are positive steps,” she said.