Long Beach residents are protesting plans by the Port of Los Angeles to build a 153-acre rail yard just upwind of a working-class neighborhood with five public schools, a day-care center and a homeless veterans' center.
Critics said the 1 million diesel-belching trucks that would carry cargo to the yard each year would worsen air pollution in an area of west Long Beach and Wilmington that they called a "sacrifice zone" for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's two largest seaports.
"They're trying to treat us like a third-world country. It's just a dumping ground over here," said Patti Sramek, who has lived for 60 years in Long Beach immediately east of the project site.
The proposed $175-million yard would be operated by BNSF Railway, which promises to use cleaner-burning equipment to reduce diesel emissions and to make it a model of green technology. The yard would feature such innovations as electric cranes and switching locomotives that are fueled by liquefied natural gas, said BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent.
Thousands of trucks daily carry cargo along the congested Long Beach Freeway from the ports inland to the rail yards of Los Angeles and Commerce and the warehouses of the Inland Empire. Their diesel pollution has worried residents along the 18-mile route through such cities as Compton, Bell Gardens and South Gate.
The proposed yard would allow containers now hauled by those trucks to be transferred to rail cars and moved north on the Alameda Corridor, reducing air pollution along the Long Beach Freeway.
But cargo would still travel by truck from the Los Angeles docks to the proposed rail yard, producing 1 million more truck trips a year close to west Long Beach homes.
That is 1 million trips too many, said residents, who plan to pack an initial environmental review meeting hosted by the Port of Los Angeles at 6 tonight at Silverado Park in Long Beach. A second meeting will follow Oct. 13 at Bannings Landing in Wilmington.
S. David Freeman, president of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, said Wednesday that he had not known about tonight's meeting until told about it by a reporter. Because of a scheduling conflict, he said, he can attend only the meeting in Wilmington.
The port is accepting written comments on the project until Nov. 4 and will then prepare an environmental report. BNSF hopes to begin construction in 2007 or 2008 and finish in 2009.
