HOW THE COMMUNITY UNITED TO STOP DIESEL POLLUTION
Every month, about 4,000 large, heavyduty trucks barrel down the streets of Barrio Logan and West National City traveling to and from the Port of San Diego’s marine terminals. The trucks are noisy and dangerous as they spew toxic diesel pollution around homes, children playing in schoolyards, families at the park and congregations gathered at church.
Exposure to diesel pollution can lead to cancer, asthma and other chronic illnesses. Children in these portside communities experience at least double the asthma emergency room visits than the county average, and residents have a higher risk of developing cancer from air pollution than 93 percent of the nation.
As far back as 1998, the state of California identified diesel as a toxic air contaminant based on scientific studies that confirmed a relationship between diesel exhaust exposure and lung cancer. In 2012, the International Agency for Research on Cancer listed diesel engine exhaust as “carcinogenic to humans.”
Recognizing the established risk to human health, the state is moving forward to phase out the use of diesel fuel in trucks, cargo-handling equipment and transit buses, and reduce it in ships and trains. Locally, the Port of San Diego adopted a Maritime Clean Air Strategy calling for the complete transition of diesel trucks to zero emission by 2030, five years before Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order calls for drayage trucks to be zero emission. The San Diego Air Pollution Control District adopted similar goals through its Community Emission Reduction Plan for Portside Communities.
Central to this changing tide are community activists like Maritza Garcia, a second-generation Logan resident and new mother. Growing up, her mother was hospitalized for respiratory ailments and many of her classmates had asthma.
Despite clear science and new policy direction, diesel pollution continues to harm communities, and some decisionmakers continue to entertain proposals for new diesel-dependent businesses. That is why, in 2020, Garcia joined the fight to stop Mitsubishi Cement Corp. from building a large cement distribution center at the Port’s 10th Avenue Marine Terminal in Barrio Logan, which could have added thousands of diesel trucks to the neighborhood.
The Port entertained the proposal, but the community said “no more.” Residents attended Port Commission meetings, left voicemails and signed petitions calling on the Port to reject the proposal by Mitsubishi Cement Corp. In response to the community’s pressure, the Board of Port Commissioners did just that, giving Mitsubishi Cement Corp. a strong and clear directive to develop measurable zero-emission truck requirements for the project.
In 2022, Mitsubishi Cement Corp. came back with the same project. In the two years that had elapsed — even as the Port worked with the community to develop a Maritime Clean Air Strategy — Mitsubishi Cement Corp. failed to develop any plans for zero-emission trucks. Garcia and her neighbors were frustrated but not defeated. As she said to the Port in her public testimony, “We are not going to stop fighting for what we want, which is to have clean air to breathe.”
In January, after months of protests, community activists, faith leaders and residents successfully stalled negotiations between the Port and the Mitsubishi Cement Corp.
This is not just a local win; it is a harbinger of a 100 percent zero-emission future in California. The California Air Resources Board is keenly focused on reducing diesel pollution, especially in the most impacted communities — those adjacent to ports, freight corridors, distribution centers and rail yards.
In recent years, the California Air Resources Board has adopted regulations requiring heavy-duty truck manufacturers to transition from diesel trucks to zeroemission trucks, with the expectation that nearly 300,000 zero-emission vehicles will be manufactured by 2035. In 2023, the California Air Resources Board is expected to adopt an Advanced Clean Fleets regulation that would require fleets that are well suited for electrification to transition to zero-emission vehicles by 2045, and specifically to reach 100 percent zero-emission drayage trucks, last mile delivery, and government fleets by 2035, and 100 percent zero-emission refuse trucks and local buses by 2040.
The California Air Resources Board measures adopted thus far are projected to save billions of dollars in health care costs and, most importantly, save lives by avoiding tens of thousands of premature deaths, hospitalizations and emergency room visits.
Children like Garcia’s new baby deserve to grow up without asthma medication and inhalers, and the fear that someday they may develop something far worse, like cancer. Everyone has the right to live, work and play in a clean and safe environment. That is the promise of environmental justice. Let’s work together to make it a reality.
Despite clear science and new policy direction, diesel pollution continues to harm communities, and some decision-makers continue to entertain proposals for new diesel-dependent businesses.