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(The following story by David Danelski appeared on The Press-Enterprise website on September 12.)

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Several residents who live near the bustling BNSF Railway yard in San Bernardino said Friday that a diesel pollution cleanup plan for the yard released last week doesn’t go far enough.

“I’d like to see a cleanup happening faster,” said Teresa Lopez, who lives next to the yard on West Fourth Street. “The cancer risk is there now.”

But railroad and California Air Resources Board officials say cleaner days are on the horizon for the rail yard that in April was found to present the worst cancer risk to neighboring residents of any rail yard in the state.

In coming years, cleaner trucks, locomotives and cargo-handling equipment will replace dirtier equipment, along with other pollution-reduction measures, say railroad and state officials.

But Lopez wasn’t impressed with the cleanup plan released by state officials last week that was prepared by a consultant for BNSF Railway. Compared with 2005 emission levels, the plan would cut pollution at the yard by 63 percent by 2015 and 76 percent by 2020.

“We need help now,” she said

She was among about 30 people — residents who live near the yard and members of an environmental group, the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice — who protested Friday morning outside BNSF offices at Hospitality Lane and Carnegie Drive.

The cleanup plan, they said, relies mostly on phased pollution reductions for trucks and locomotives that are already required under state and federal regulations, and previous agreements railroad officials made with the state air board.

The cancer risk from the San Bernardino yard — an estimated 2,500 cases per million people — is 2.5 times higher than the second worst yard in the state, which is in Commerce. It is 25 times and 17 times worse, respectively, than Union Pacific yards in Mira Loma and Colton, according to state reports.

Given such a big difference, the San Bernardino yard should be a higher priority, said Jan Misquez, an organizer with the environmental group. The railroad company should use electrical cargo-handling equipment and relocate a driveway that brings diesel trucks close to homes, she said.

“It is a high priority,” said Lena Kent, a spokeswoman for BNSF Railway inside the company building as protester rallied outside.

The cleanup plan “is a draft,” Kent said. “It is a starting point. We want to hear from these people in front of the building.”

The company expects to identify more cleanup measures after it meets with residents at a public hearing now tentatively scheduled for Oct. 1.

Kent said the company has already reduced pollution by limiting locomotive idling, using cleaner fuels and deploying to California the newest, cleanest, locomotives in its national fleet. Since 2005, these measures have cut rail-yard pollution by the more than 20 percent, she said.

Harold Holmes, a manager for the state air board overseeing rail-yard cleanup efforts, said pollution at the San Bernardino yard will be greatly reduced in 2010 when a rule will require trucks serving the yard to have exhaust pipe traps that cut diesel pollution by 90 percent. The rule applies to trucks serving the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and intermodal rail yards, including the San Bernardino yard, that handle containers from the ports. The yard handles about 500,000 shipping containers a year.

Holmes added state and railroad officials have discussed using specially designed light, low-polluting locomotives for assembling cars into trains.

But in the five and half months since the yard’s higher cancer risk was identified, Miriam Davila hasn’t seen any changes at the rail yard.

“You can still see the smoke when the trains go by,” said Davila, who lives nearby.