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Southern California air quality officials have adopted first-of-their-kind rules on warehouse distribution centers in an effort to cut truck pollution, increase electrification and reduce health risks in communities hit hardest by lung-damaging diesel exhaust.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s governing board approved the rules Friday on a 9-4 vote
after an hours-long public hearing.
The rules apply to nearly 3,000 warehouses across the region and mark the first comprehensive effort to limit the environmental impacts of the booming goods-movement industry. As massive logistics warehouses have proliferated in areas that are disproportionately Black and Latino, increasing numbers of diesel trucks are plying routes closer to homes, schools and neighborhoods that are already burdened with some of the dirtiest air in the nation.
LOS ANGELES â Southern California air quality officials have adopted first-of-their-kind rules on warehouse distribution centers in an effort to cut truck pollution, increase electrification and reduce health risks in communities hit hardest by lung-damaging diesel exhaust.
The South Coast Air Quality Management Districtâs governing board approved the rules Friday on a 9-4 vote after an hours-long public hearing.
The rules apply to nearly 3,000 warehouses across the region and mark the first comprehensive effort to limit the environmental impacts of the booming goods-movement industry. As massive logistics warehouses have proliferated in areas that are disproportionately Black and Latino, increasing numbers of diesel trucks are plying routes closer to homes, schools and neighborhoods that are already burdened with some of the dirtiest air in the nation.
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Roxana Barrera realized air pollution was a problem in her San Bernardino neighborhood when her son Leo got really sick just before his first birthday. He was wheezing so much she had to rush him to urgent care.
“It was scary,” the 27-year-old said. “The first time it happened, I didn’t know what was going on, I could just hear that he was really struggling to breathe.”
Leo, now three, was prescribed an inhaler, and Barrera was told that poor air quality was partly to blame. Air pollution in her neighborhood is among the worst in the nation, and its asthma rate is in the 97th percentile statewide.