Toxic Trucks -- Highway Smog Means Asthma For Low-Income Californians

RICHMOND, Calif.--When Jannat Muhammad's 7-year-old grandniece developed asthma back in 2000, Muhammad was pained but not surprised. After all, many of the child's schoolmates at Verde Elementary in North Richmond were succumbing to the disease with numbing regulatory.

"There's a tremendous amount of asthma among children in Verde," said Muhammad, who works with the Costa Contra County Health Services' West County Asthma Coalition.

A study released today indicates that children living along truck routes in California have high rates of asthma and low lung capacity. Verde Elementary is in the proximity of the Chevron oil refineries, long blamed for some of the health woes of West Contra Costa County's residents, and a thoroughfare for trucks between Highway 80 and the Richmond Parkway.

Asthma, the most common chronic disease among children in the United States, causes wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath. Airborne particles such as dust, soot and smoke less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter are small enough to lodge themselves deep in the lungs, causing a host of respiratory problems and even nonfatal heart attacks, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A significant portion of these fine particles are produced by diesel engine emissions.

The landscape of West Contra Costa County and the Alameda county communities of West San Leandro and West Oakland is dotted with waste-transfer stations, ports, rail yards and departmental stores that provide good business to the trucking industry. The Port of Oakland, for instance, boasts more than 10,000 truck trips a day, according to Bill Aboudi, operations manager of AB Trucking, whose fleet of trucks hauls goods out of the port. Aboudi says that because of "limited space" at the port terminals, "there is always a long line of trucks inching along," generating diesel emissions.

It's not just children who are affected by the emissions. "So many truckers have asthma," Aboudi says.

Read More
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=04a86ffaef25f2b10079f764adc8e502