Air Board Targets Rail Yards’ Idling Threats

Denouncing a controversial state agreement with railroads, Southern California’s air-quality board Friday unanimously adopted two rules designed to protect people living near the Los Angeles Basin’s massive rail yards from fumes spewed by idling freight trains.

Beginning in August, the four freight railroads operating in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties cannot allow unattended trains to idle more than half an hour in many cases and the railroads must keep records of idling trains.

In recent years, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has received about 300 complaints concerning smoke and odor from trains, including reports of locomotives left idling for hours. Trains are a major source of diesel exhaust, which contains fine soot particles and gases linked to lung cancer, asthma and other diseases.

On Friday, more than a dozen residents of Commerce and other areas near rail yards urged the AQMD board to adopt the rules, testifying about the health threat and odors they regularly experience near their homes. The rail yards are in or near some of the region’s poorest neighborhoods.

But the AQMD’s new rules are likely to be challenged in federal court.

Representatives of railroad companies said the rules would obstruct interstate commerce, decrease worker efficiency, cause unnecessary freight delays and require onerous record-keeping. They also said the rules will not reduce emissions because the railroads are already working to comply with a voluntary state agreement for idling trains.

“What they adopted contradicts many of the provisions in a statewide program and thus will interfere with railroad operations and won’t clean up the air,” said Kirk Marckwald, a spokesman for the Assn. of American Railroads.

The companies regulated under the new rules are Union Pacific Railroad Co., Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co., Los Angeles Junction Railway and Pacific Harbor Line Inc.

Last June, the California Air Resources Board struck a deal with the two largest railroads, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, that puts fewer restraints on idling trains. The agreement was reached without public input.

AQMD officials and activists called the action a backroom deal that would undermine tougher local pollution controls and they urged the state board to reconsider. But last week, the Air Resources Board voted to stick with the pact.

AQMD Chairman William Burke said Friday that the state’s agreement “simply does not go far enough to reduce emissions and protect public health, especially for those living near rail yards.”

Environmental groups argued that communities near the rail yards need more immediate, permanent and enforceable relief from toxic train fumes than offered by the voluntary program agreed to by the state and railroads.

Officials from the state air board have said they negotiated the deal because they do not believe they have the legal authority to force the railroads to meet tougher requirements. Because railroads cross state lines, the federal government normally regulates them.

Marckwald would not say Friday whether the railroads intend to sue. But in a letter to the AQMD last month, a railroad industry attorney warned that the new rules would interfere with the railroad operations, which is specifically prohibited by the interstate commerce law.

AQMD attorneys told the board Friday that their review of the Clean Air Act and the commerce law suggests that the local board has the legal authority to adopt more stringent rules.

Under the new AQMD rules, the locomotives cannot idle longer than 30 minutes during crew changes or meal breaks, if they are stopped within the rail yards or queuing up at them, or if they are undergoing maintenance that does not require them to be running. Also, a trailing locomotive -- which pulls the train but is not the lead locomotive -- cannot idle for longer than 30 minutes if there is a delay or problem on the line.

AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said idling is “completely unnecessary” under those conditions and that the rule has many exemptions for emergencies, cold weather and other conditions.

In the state pact, railroads voluntarily agreed to end “nonessential” idling, equip locomotives with shut-down devices and take other steps. But, unlike the AQMD rules, it allows idling for 60 minutes and does not require record-keeping.

The state agreement has an “escape” clause that if any local agency passes stricter regulations, the railroads can walk away from the statewide deal.

But Marckwald said Friday that “the railroads are committed.... We don’t intend to back out of any element of it at this time.”

State air board spokeswoman Karen Caesar said the railroads can comply with the local rules or contest them, but “neither decision will affect our M.O.U.” [memorandum of understanding].

“We’re hopeful that [the railroads] will stay with the agreement,” she said. “Right now they are complying and we’re pleased that they have stuck with it.”