(The following article by Chris Bowman was posted on the Sacramento Bee website on June 25.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Locomotive exhaust from the Union Pacific Railroad yard in Roseville and other freight train hubs in California would be reduced “significantly” under a state agreement signed Friday.
Among other steps, the deal obligates Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe to eliminate “nonessential idling,” conduct health-risk assessments of all major railyards in California within the next 30 months and repair within four days locomotives spewing heavy smoke.
The cleanup measures will be phased in over the next 10 years, beginning Wednesday, according to the California Air Resources Board.
Normally, the air board spurs industries and small businesses to cut harmful exhausts by force of regulation. But the state’s authority does not extend to locomotives – only the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has that power.
The EPA rules, however, won’t bring emission reductions of any significance in time to benefit the Sacramento region and other smoggy urban areas under federal cleanup deadlines.
Though less enforceable than state regulation, the “memorandum of understanding” signed Friday would accelerate cleanup beyond what federal laws require, said Catherine Witherspoon, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board.
“This agreement will allow us to achieve greater emission reductions in a shorter period of time than would have been possible through any other process,” Witherspoon said.
The deal does carry penalties, however. For example, the air board could fine railroads up to $440 a day for excessive locomotive idling, said Michael Scheibel, deputy executive officer of the air board.
“Between the publicity hit they would take and the fines, they will comply,” Scheibel said.
The agreement affects 36 railyards statewide, including the major hubs in Roseville; Colton, in San Bernardino County; Barstow, in the Mohave Desert; and the city of Commerce in Los Angeles County.
The larger railyards – 16 in all – will be required to do the most cleanup through installation of automatic idle-reduction devices on all locomotives, prompt repair of smoking locomotives and various operational changes that would reduce the drift of diesel exhaust to neighboring residents.
Further, the railroad companies will evaluate the health risks from locomotive emissions from these years, similar to a recent air board study of the Roseville operation.
In the first analysis of its kind, the air board, in cooperation with Union Pacific, quantified the toxic particles of diesel exhaust from the locomotives that chug and idle around the clock in Roseville’s 52-track J.R. Davis Yard, the railroad’s busiest hub west of the Rocky Mountains.
The air board calculated that yard operations emitted 25 tons of sooty pollution in 2000. In the five years since, traffic in the yard has increased further, with up to 70 cargo trains a day now converging on the 6-mile-long strip in the heart of Roseville.
The calculation confirmed the train yard to be the single largest generator of diesel exhaust in the six-county Sacramento region, air officials said.
The study also found that the locomotive-soot plume extended about 100 square miles – encompassing most of Roseville, all of Citrus Heights and all of Antelope – and affecting an estimated 165,000 residents.
The study helped the railroad pinpoint how it could change operations to get the most emission reductions for the money, Union Pacific officials said. And they expect the agreement signed Friday to bring the same benefits.
“This agreement with CARB will build upon this progress – including what we’ve learned in the last eight months from our aggressive work in Roseville – to maintain our role as an environmental leader in the transportation industry,” said Robert Grimaila, Union Pacific’s vice president of environment and safety.
The railyard study arose from the air board’s mandate to clean up an array of diesel-fueled engines statewide.
In 1998 the board declared the particles in diesel exhaust – mainly specks of soot – a “toxic air contaminant” because of their potential to cause cancer and premature heart-and lung-related deaths in adults.