Ditching Dirty Diesel

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Tackling the Problem

Given the extensiveness of the wide-reaching freight infrastructure that creates much of the diesel pollution problem, it’s no surprise that the solutions are equally diverse. In order to achieve cleaner skies and cleaner communities, solutions range from changing individual driver behavior to reduce truck idling, to technological fixes like upgrading vehicles to alternatives like natural gas, to changing the regulations, laws, and planning decisions that shape so much of the freight infrastructure.

Led by the voices of those most impacted by diesel, and shaped by research and technical assistance from other environmental health partners, the Ditching Dirty Diesel Collaborative understandings that communities will only be unburdened from diesel pollution by taking a broad approach to the problem. For example:

For too long communities have been burdened by trucks that idle near ports and in residential communities as drivers rest and wait for repairs. In response, the DDDC developed anti-idling materials for use by community advocates to educate drivers to shut down their rigs. We also pushed for the passage and enforcement of an anti-idling law.
Emissions standards for all kinds of diesel vehicles are set by the State of California’s Air Resources Board. The DDDC has worked hard to push the Board to adopt strong, health-protective standards.
Freight infrastructure and the associated pollution doesn’t end up in certain communities by accident, but are shaped by planning and land use decisions. That’s why the Collaborative has worked with state and regional agencies to make sure that planning first and foremost protects the health and quality of life of the most burdened communities. Click below for letters that DDDC has sent to various agencies demonstrating our engagement in various planning process (to save the PDF, right click on the link and choose "Save Link As"):
- Bay Area's Sustainable Communities Strategies/Plan Bay Area
  > Comment letter on SCS/Plan Bay Area and its draft EIR (May 16, 2013) - PDF
  > Comment letter on the scoping of the SCS to MTC (July 11, 2012) - PDF
  > Comment letter on SCS to ABAG, MTC, and BAAQMD (May 7, 2012) - PDF
  > Letter to on SCS implementation to EPA Region 9 (February 2, 2012) - PDF
- Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's (OEHHA) Environmental Health Screening Tool (EnviroScreen)
  > Comment letter on EnviroScreen (September 12, 2012) - PDF
- One Bay Area Grant Program
  > Comment letter to BAAQMD and ABAG (May 2, 2012) - PDF
- SB 375 Greenhouse Gas Reduction legislation
  > DDDC's Platform for SB 375 Implementation (July 21, 2011) - PDF
- 2010 Northern California MegaRegion Summit
  > Letter sent to Port of Oakland, Office of Mayor Dellums and Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce (March 17, 2010) -PDF
- Bay Area Air Quality Management District's proposed cumulative impacts resolution
  > Letter of support to BAAQMD (July 30, 2008) - PDF

To learn more about the massive system that creates diesel pollution, read “Snapshot: A Toy Story”. For more information about the Collaborative’s past success, check out our history. For an overview of our current work and for how to get involved, click here.

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Snap Shot " A Toy Story", Tackling the Problem, Current Action and Policy Alerts

Snapshot - A Toy Story

To better understand the vast, sprawling infrastructure that creates diesel pollution, let’s imagine a little girl named “Alisha”, whose seventh birthday is weeks away. She has her heart set on a doll she saw at the toy store a few weeks ago, and she has already decided that she will name it “Kathy.” Before that doll can end up in the dollhouse that adorns Alisha’s suburban Chicago bedroom, Kathy is going to have to go on a bit of a journey. Kathy is assembled and packaged in China and packed with 20,000 other dolls into a 40-by-8-foot container. The container is loaded onto a marine vessel holding 4,000 other containers carrying dolls, shoes, and electronics. Fueled by low-quality bunker fuel, the ship leaves Shanghai and chugs across the Pacific Ocean, belching nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulate matter, and other pollutants all the way.

Weeks later, Kathy arrives at one of several ports along the U.S.’s western seaboard such as the Ports of Oakland, Los Angeles or Long Beach. She and the other 20,000 dolls are unloaded by longshore workers. Diesel soot from the ship, the Port’s diesel machinery, and the hundreds of idling trucks coats the workers. Alisha’s doll doesn’t get sooty, but the longshoremen will use baby wipes on their hands and faces before they go home. Kathy takes a ride in the back of a large diesel truck to a railyard. On the way she and her friends pass many other children; in fact, the railyard is one-quarter of a mile from schools and homes, often in low income communities and/or communities of color. Kathy’s container is placed on a freight train, pulled by a diesel locomotive. Alternatively, some of the dolls from Kathy’s factory are placed on another big-rig truck and sent for repackaging to a mega-warehouse 50 miles from the ports.

After Kathy’s train trip, her container is unloaded in a large distribution facility. Then, after weeks of being on the move, Kathy finally is trucked to her destination, a big-box retailer in suburban Chicago. By this time, she has traveled more than 8,000 miles, far more than Alisha ever could imagine, on diesel-burning vehicles the entire trip. In Kathy’s wake is not just diesel pollution but browner skies, health impacts, and intrusions on communities’ quality of life.

_{- Adapted from Hricko A. “Ships, Trucks, and Trains: Effects of Goods Movement on Environmental Health.” Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 114, no. 4 (April 2006).}

To better understand what can be done about diesel pollution, visit Tackling the diesel problem. To learn about the DDDC’s current activities and policy alerts, click here.

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Snap Shot " A Toy Story", Tackling the Problem, Current Action and Policy Alerts