City Must Be Driving Force in Reducing Diesel Pollution

The science is beyond dispute: Diesel exhaust causes cancer and is by far the largest single health hazard in Southern California’s air. The city of Los Angeles has a rare opportunity this week to begin reducing diesel emissions in the basin almost immediately, and to set a precedent for sweeping, industrywide innovation that eventually could rid the atmosphere of its most lethal pollutant.

It’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.

Diesel is responsible for about 70% of the health risk we face from our polluted air. None of us is immune to the hazard, but residents of low-income, largely minority neighborhoods where trucks, buses, and trains are most prevalent face significantly higher risks than the general population.

Momentum to replace diesel engines has increased along with the growing scientific consensus that diesel exhaust is deadly. Industries and government agencies throughout the nation are experimenting with clean fuel alternatives.

In California, the state is spending millions to test cleaner engines, the Air Quality Management District is tightening emission requirements on trucks and buses, and the courts have ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to buy buses powered by compressed natural gas.

The city also can make a difference. I’ve introduced a law to require a franchise for the private refuse companies that haul half of the city’s garbage. A franchise agreement could require them to convert fleets to clean-burning vehicles and to provide recycling services to commercial buildings and multifamily residences.

Meanwhile, City Councilman Hal Bernson, also a member of the AQMD board, just introduced a measure that could eliminate all diesel vehicles from city fleets.

The first test of the city’s commitment to eradicating diesel comes this week. The council will vote Wednesday on another proposal I’ve made that would eventually bar most diesel vehicles from the Sunshine Canyon Landfill, thereby reducing poisonous exhaust throughout the city and particularly in the Granada Hills community adjoining the landfill.

I’ll continue to vote against reopening Sunshine Canyon until we’re sure other options won’t work. But regardless of where council members stand on that issue, we all have a responsibility to mitigate the toxic effects of diesel trash trucks in case the landfill is approved.

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Despite predictable protests from the landfill operator, existing and emerging technologies make a diesel phaseout possible right now. Pilot projects from Pennsylvania to Orange County are successfully replacing diesel trucks with clean-fuel vehicles using compressed or liquefied natural gas. Waste Management, a competitor of Sunshine Canyon operator BFI, already is hauling trash with such vehicles and it has ordered more.

Making the switch to clean fuels costs money, of course, but the AQMD distributes tens of millions of dollars annually to government agencies and private businesses to subsidize conversion, and in some cases to cover 100% of the incremental cost.

Using these subsidies, the city’s own Bureau of Sanitation will test 10 alternative-fuel trash trucks in the coming months.

By enacting tough diesel conditions for Sunshine Canyon, the City Council can give residents immediate relief from toxic exhaust, and also begin a comprehensive transition to trucks, buses and other heavy vehicles that burn safer fuels.

Government action is the linchpin of this transition because it creates the demand needed for investment in research and development of better technology.

By holding private waste haulers and public fleets to the same high standards, we can rid our air of its most dangerous pollutant and protect the health of Southern Californians.