Comment Log Display

December 5, 2007

Jill Ratner, President
Rose Foundation for Communities & the Environment
6008 College Avenue, Suite 10
Oakland, CA  94618
(510) 658-0702



Dear Chairman Nichols and Members of the Board:

On behalf of the Rose Foundation for Communities and the
Environment, I write to support the proposed drayage rule
requiring all trucks serving California’s ports meet diesel
emission standards applicable to new 2007 trucks by the year 2014.
 

We support this rule because it is a vitally needed step in the
fight to reduce diesel pollution in communities, which, like
Oakland, host major ports and the facilities that support those
ports. 

Diesel pollution is particularly prevalent in West Oakland, the
community adjacent to Oakland’s Port.  Pollution from the trucks
that go in and out of the port, on both local freeways and surface
streets, creates serious health problems for West Oakland
residents, including increased risk of cancer and respiratory
disease.   West Oakland has some of the highest asthma rates in
California, with a painfully high rate of asthma hospitalizations.
 West Oakland residents are predominantly people of color with
limited financial resources  -- facts that raise environmental
justice concerns that can not, and should not, be dismissed.

West Oakland is not the only Oakland neighborhood that bears an
unhealthy burden of port truck emissions.  East Oakland is home to
break-bulk distribution centers and huge storage lots stacked high
with the cargo containers that are used to ship freight to and
from the port.  As a result, East Oakland also is severely
impacted by port truck emissions, and East Oakland residents, who
also are generally people of color with low incomes and few
financial resources, face related health risks as well.

The Rose Foundation’s New Voices Are Rising project helps high
school students develop and practice leadership skills.  Most of
our students live in under-served Oakland neighborhoods, largely
West Oakland and East Oakland.  Last summer, fifteen of students
researched and wrote on issues related to diesel pollution in
their neighborhoods.  The following are excerpts from their
writings;

 
Janan Luu, 16
Oakland High School, East Oakland
The next step is to… adopt new, stricter regulations, for diesel
trucks

Now that the California Air Resources Board has passed the
Off-Road Vehicle Rule, the next step in reducing diesel emissions
in California is cutting pollution from our ports.  

California’s seaports are among the busiest in the nation, and
some of the major hotspots of pollution in the state.  Diesel
fuels much of the heavy machinery used to move the massive amount
of goods coming in and out of the ports daily, creating large
clouds of diesel particulate.  Diesel trucks are among the biggest
sources of particulate pollution in and around the ports.   Many of
these trucks pass through nearby low-income residential
neighborhoods, with adverse effects on already disadvantaged
communities.  The trucks cause a variety of problems, such as
noise pollution, blight, and diseases like asthma, lung cancer,
and heart disease.

A lot of diesel truck pollution at the ports and could be easily
avoided. Truckers often have to travel out of the port and into
our neighborhoods for (basic) services, again creating a nuisance
for the surrounding community and polluting the air in the
process. …

Our ports, including the Port of Oakland, are undergoing a period
of expansion, which means that there will be more and larger ships
coming in, served by more and more trucks.  If left unchecked, this
will cause more pollution, posing serious problems for our health
and wellbeing.  

The next step is to urge the Air Resources Board to adopt new,
stricter regulations, for diesel trucks – holding our ports
accountable for protecting the public health, and the health of
port employees and those who live nearby and have to cope with the
ports’ daily activities.


Brittnie Collins, 16
McClymonds-Excel High School in West Oakland.  
I live in West Oakland. …  I actually experience the diesel trucks
driving through our community everyday.  There are trucks on the
freeways all around us, and going in and out of the Port of
Oakland, which is the fourth largest port in the country, located
in West Oakland on 7th Street.  

Tianna Pitman, 17
McClymonds-Excel High School in West Oakland
•	According to the Alameda County Health Status Report of 2006,
the rates of asthma hospitalization in Alameda county are the
second highest among the state’s 58 counties.
•	In West Oakland, where I live, kids under 5 years old had to go
to the hospital for asthma twice as often as the county average.
•	In 2005, 2299 sixth graders at 14 schools in the Oakland Unified
School District were given an asthma questionnaire
•	17% of those students said that they currently had asthma.  

For all 390 students who reported that they currently had asthma
•	A quarter of them needed emergency care
•	More than half had difficulty sleeping 
•	More then two thirds had used inhalers 
•	And almost half said they weren’t able to do certain
activities…

All because of their asthma, and all in that one year. 

At the middle school on the McClymonds campus, over 35% of the 6th
graders completing the questionnaire said that they currently had
asthma. This was the highest incidence of current asthma of all 14
schools.

Amber Bishop, 15
Skyline High School, Oakland
I live in East Oakland and I have been diagnosed with asthma since
the age of two. The older I get, the more my asthma gets
progressively worse. I am constantly short of breath throughout
the day and night. When I become ill, it becomes harder for me to
get better. I am one of four people in my household that deal with
asthma on a daily basis. 

Certain smells trigger attacks to come on. Being that I am
surrounded by an industrialized area, the smoke from trucks or
smells that come from factories cause me to use my asthma pump 2
or 3 times in the day.  

Danyale Wilingham
McClymonds-Excel High School in West Oakland
I have three cousins with asthma. One is 19 years old. He has
never played sports in his life because he was afraid of having an
asthma attack. He is better than he used to be but he still has all
the asthma equipment in the room because at any moment he could get
short of breath again. 

Then I have another cousin who is 8 years old. Sometimes she has a
hard time catching her breath after she comes in from outside
playing with other children. Every once in a while she uses an
inhaler.

My youngest cousin with asthma is 4 years old. She can’t really
play with other children because she has a hard time keeping up
with them. She loses her breath very quickly. She has to take
medication for her asthma. 

I don’t think it’s fair to make my cousins wait for clean air. 

Ashley Nathaniel,17
McClymonds-Excel High School, in West Oakland
The people in our neighborhoods cannot wait for you to regulate
the diesel emissions that cause asthma, heart disease, and other
serious respiratory problems to the people in our communities…. We
are already paying a high price every day by suffering with poor
health. 

Irfana Khan , 16
Oakland Technical High School in North Oakland
It’s not just the individuals and families with asthma who pay for
dirty diesel with their poor health. The state of California is
losing money on top of losing clean air and healthy people. 


On behalf of the Rose Foundation for Communities and the
Environment,  thank you for taking these important voices into
account as you consider this critical action to improve the air in
California’s communities.  

We respectfully urge you to adopt the proposed rule to reduce
pollution from drayage operations at California’s ports.


Sincerely,

Jill Ratner, President
Rose Foundation for Communities & the Environment