Cancer risk rises for those near rail yards

In addition, clouds of diesel exhaust blown by the wind from the rail yards blanket wide swaths of Greater Los Angeles, upping annual cancer risks slightly for millions more residents.

"The risks are much higher than they ought to be, and we need to do everything we can to reduce them," said Michael Scheible, deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board.

The health risk assessments, which were released in draft form this week, were prepared as part of a voluntary agreement between the nation's two largest railroads and the state air board. Such assessments have been done only once before in California, at a Roseville rail yard.

Hardest hit in the region are neighborhoods in Commerce that are near one Union Pacific and three BNSF yards. Residents in the tidy, working-class neighborhoods of Bandini and Ayers-Leonis are 70% to 140% more likely to contract cancer from diesel soot than people in the rest of Los Angeles. Regulators said some homes are only a few feet from rail-yard fence lines, and there are schools and parks near the yards, which operate around the clock 365 days a year.

Other rail yards and neighborhoods covered by the initial round of studies include Union Pacific's Los Angeles Transportation Center, Mira Loma near Union Pacific's yard in Riverside County and a BNSF facility in Wilmington. In those places, residents are 11% to 26% more likely to contract cancer from soot.

Railroad officials said the studies showed that the rail yards produce less than 1% of the region's diesel particulate emissions. But they said they were concerned about their contribution to local health risks and were spending millions of dollars to slash emissions in coming years with hundreds of new locomotives, anti-idling devices, cleaner fuels and other measures.

"We're certainly part of the issue," said Lanny Schmid, director of Union Pacific's environmental programs. "We like to think we're a small part of the issue, and we're going to get it even smaller."

But angry, anxious Commerce residents and others who were informed of the higher health risks at a City Hall briefing Wednesday night said faster action was needed. They also were disturbed that risks of respiratory disease, asthma and impaired lung function -- all shown in numerous studies to increase with exposure to diesel soot -- were not included in the health assessments.