With the sixth busiest container port in the entire world, busy freight and trucking networks crisscross parts of Southern California, leaving behind massive amounts of harmful emissions in the Los Angeles skies. Yet a new proposal would build a railroad yard within feet of an elementary school playground, exposing kids to even greater health risks caused by poor air quality.
Even though the purpose of the yard is to reduce the intense truck traffic in East Los Angeles, health and local school officials are extremely worried about the impact this will have on the children’s health. As reported in Scientific America, the new railroad yard would bring a staggering 1.5 million more trucks close to the school each year.
Research from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences shows that exposure to air pollution is linked to “asthma, smaller babies, cardiovascular disease, lung function and even death.”
Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the freight company that made the proposal, plans to make the yard as environmentally friendly as possible, promising to use greener equipment and only accept low-emission trucks there. But the Long Beach neighborhood already faces these dangerous health issues, and with more trucks in the area, the impact on public health can only get worse.
Posted in Freight Rail
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Is the school in a residential neighborhood of Long Beach? Would the project increase or decrease the number of trucks going through or near the neighborhoods the kids’ in the school live in? If their home air quality gets better, it could be worth making the school air quality worse. If both get worse, that would be pretty bad.
Could BNSF build a new school further away as part of the project?