No More Delays – South Coast Regulators Must Act on Rail Yard Pollution

By Esmeralda Sanchez, UCR student

I have lived in the Inland Empire my whole life and it’s clear the impacts of our air quality and climate crisis aren’t just hypothetical for me and my community. We are already living with the impacts of our leaders’ inaction on climate. Growing up in San Bernardino and going to school in Riverside, I have watched the boom of warehouses pop up in my community and with them the swarms of polluting freight trains and rail yards. 

Rail yards are so common that it really is like the trains are in our backyards. We hear them rumble and smell the pollution from their diesel engines 24 hours a day, seven days a week as they crawl through our towns. And it’s not just the trains that are impacting our communities, it’s the machinery and polluting trucks at these facilities as well. With the rise of e-commerce and warehouses, freight facilities create a network of harm to our communities that our local leaders have to address urgently. 

I am 22 years old and already live with severe asthma and pulmonary inflammation, requiring me to see my doctor regularly to treat these conditions. It feels like my airways just aren’t functioning the way they should, and I’ve been told that this is a direct result of breathing the air in my hometown and where I go to school in Riverside. I’ve watched my younger siblings suffer from consistent nosebleeds with no real solution. All the while, these major polluters continue to line their pockets with massive profits at the expense of our communities.

This summer we’ve had almost non-stop bad air quality days since the beginning of June. Combined with record-breaking heat waves, we are having to shoulder a dangerous combination of extreme heat and unhealthy air. We need strong action to cut dangerous air pollution and slash climate-harming emissions across our region.

I love my community but I worry I won’t be able to stay here because of the unhealthy air and the impact it has already had on me and my family. How can we maintain the health and wellbeing of ourselves and our families if the air we breathe keeps making us sick? If we don’t start implementing strong rules to clean up our air and polluters can continue to expand their harmful operations, I don’t know how far would be far enough to get away from this dangerous pollution. 

I got involved with my local Sierra Club chapter to help inform my community about this toxic pollution and how we can hold polluters accountable for the harm they’ve caused. For years the community has fought for strong rules that support a cleaner freight industry. 

This summer, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) has an opportunity to cut pollution from the rail yards and begin to hold polluters accountable by adopting the Rail Yard Indirect Source Rule (ISR). For too long regulators have let a massively profitable industry freely pollute our communities. In 2021, The SCAQMD adopted the Warehouse ISR that is already working to encourage warehouse operators to deploy clean technologies and hold those out of compliance accountable. The SCAQMD can build on this success and really begin to tackle the harm caused by freight facilities and keep goods moving in a cleaner way, by adopting the Rail Yard ISR this summer.

I want myself and my community to breathe healthy air, I want to be able to have a future that is not dictated by polluters. It’s time for the SCAQMD to adopt the Rail Yard ISR this summer.