Clean Air News

As the new home of MASSPIRG's environmental work, Environment Massachusetts can be contacted regarding this news release. 

BOSTON—Environmental organizations today released the findings of a major national study which estimates that more than 20,000 Americans die prematurely each year from breathing deadly diesel fumes. This places diesel pollution above firearm homicide and drunk driving as a risk for premature death. Estimates of costs associated with the health and other impacts of diesel soot will mount to as much as $139 billion in 2010.

According to Diesel and Health in America: The Lingering Threat, authored by the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force (CATF), Boston ranks fifth among the nation’s metro areas hardest hit by diesel exhaust, while Suffolk County residents experience the third highest risk among all 3,109 counties in the U.S. for exposure to diesel pollution.

Michael Stoddard, an attorney at the non-profit group Environment Northeast (ENE) and the director of ENE’s New England Diesel Initiative observed, “Nobody who cares about the 1 out of 8 Massachusetts residents suffering from heart or lung ailments or the cost of these health problems can ignore the message of the Task Force study.”

Massachusetts Health and Productivity Impacts from Diesel Pollution

More health impacts for Massachusetts and other states are available at http://www.catf.us/goto/ENEdieselhealth and are searchable by zip code, county or metro area.

John Wargo, Ph.D., Professor of Risk Analysis and Environmental Policy at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and director of the Yale Environment and Health Initiative said, "This is a well researched study that demonstrates we're not doing enough to protect children from dangerous levels of diesel exhaust and the toxic substances it contains. EPA has designated components of diesel exhaust as human carcinogens. Some are also genotoxic, mutagenic, and can produce inflammation and irritation of airways. Children are often exposed to diesel exhaust at levels far above those predicted by current government monitoring efforts. When this knowledge is combined with the recognition that we're facing a national epidemic of childhood asthma, the study recommendations represent sound policy resting upon sound science."

“Diesel exhaust is an environmental injustice,” said Penn Loh, executive director at Alternatives for Community and Environment. “Low income urban neighborhoods are overburdened by diesel traffic, truck facilities, and bus barns. And the residents exposed, many of whom are people of color, are those who can least afford to miss a day of work or pay to visit a doctor.”

Solutions

Many of these deaths and other health impacts could be prevented by applying existing technology to cut diesel emissions. Cleaner fuels and retrofit filters eliminate between 50 percent - 90 percent of the harmful exhaust from the current crop of diesel engines. Said Frank Gorke, an advocate at MASSPIRG, “We have made some progress in Massachusetts, in particular as the MBTA updates its bus fleet. But this study shows we have a long way to go to adequately protect public health. We’d like to see political leaders develop a comprehensive plan for cutting diesel pollution from all sources.”

Cindy Luppi, organizing director of Clean Water Action, also urged activists and policymakers to focus attention on comprehensive responses that include the state’s smaller cities. “This report suggests that while towns in Middlesex and Norfolk counties are hardest hit by diesel exhaust, even a county like Hampden is experiencing over 25 premature deaths and 400 asthma attacks each year,” she said.

Advocacy groups agreed that this report should serve as a wake up call for activists and policymakers to think about how the state can pursue a more systematic, comprehensive initiative to clean up fleets of heavy duty diesel vehicles. “Anti-idling campaign are nice, but they do not go far enough, fast enough to save all these lives,” said Stoddard.

“Certainly, EPA must stay the course on its long-term program to reduce emissions from new engines,” said Conrad Schneider, Clean Air Task Force’s Advocacy Director and co-author of the report. “In the meantime, we must address emissions from the dirty engines on the road today. Given diesel’s toll in lives and livelihoods, and the availability of affordable, off-the-shelf solutions, a quarter century delay for clean-up simply is not acceptable.”

COUNTY-BY-COUNTY IMPACTS AVAILABLE at: http://www.catf.us/projects/diesel/dieselhealth/