please scroll down for title, caption, and health hazards of diesel fumes
photo © Marvin Bartel

Not all the trucks smoke as much as this Elkhart County maintenance truck. Diesel engines produce significantly more toxins when under heavy load. The stop-and-go driving when you have take your rig through the city and the neighborhoods puts out a lot more air pollution toxins than would be produced if trucks could use a bypass where they could just keep on moving.

On April 24, 2000, a group of citizens counted the trucks in Goshen, Indiana. "The number of 18 wheel semis which passed this checkpoint during the 7 1/2 hour study was 725. The number of other large commercial trucks was 519, manufactured housing 12 and RV’s 75 for a total of 1,331 large commercial vehicles." -- from Press Report

Virtually all these vehicles operate on diesel and they all pass through residential neighborhoods and a number of schools. Since 2000, our traffic has increased and we still have all the trucks going through the center of Goshen. The city administration encourages trucks to travel through Goshen by a plan to widen the central corridor of highways. Several blocks of this are already complete as of this update in 2004. This has the effect of encouraging more trucks to select our neighborhoods as their route of choice.

Nobody should have to live, work, go to school, or play near a truck route. The following quotation comes from a page by The Union of Concerned Scientists, September, 2003.

Particulates irritate the eyes and nose and aggravate respiratory problems, including asthma, which afflicts 13 million Americans. Very small particles, called fine particulates, have also been directly associated with an increased risk of premature death. One recent landmark study found that the risk of premature death in areas with high levels of fine particulates was 26 percent greater than in areas with lower levels. Researchers estimate that, nationwide, tens of thousands of people die prematurely each year as a result of particulate pollution. Diesel engines contribute to the problem by releasing particulates directly into the air and by emitting nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, which transform into "secondary" particulates in the atmosphere.

Diesel-related emissions of nitrogen oxides also contribute to ozone, the major ingredient in the smog engulfing major cities. High up in the stratosphere, ozone shields the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays. But at ground level, ozone--formed when nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbon emissions combine in the presence of sunlight--irritates the respiratory system, causing coughing, choking, and reduced lung capacity. Urban ozone pollution has been linked to increased hospital admissions for respiratory problems such as asthma, even at levels below the current standard. Ozone presents hazards for healthy adults as well: one study of nonsmoking adults in the ozone-heavy Los Angeles area found that their breathing capacity was reduced as much as that of pack-a-day smokers.

In addition to contributing to mainstream air pollution problems, public health agencies consider diesel exhaust a potential human carcinogen. Exposure to high levels of diesel exhaust causes lung tumors in rats, and studies of humans routinely exposed to diesel fumes indicate a greater risk of lung cancer. For example, occupational health studies of railroad, dock, trucking, and bus garage workers exposed to high levels of diesel exhaust over many years consistently demonstrate a 20 to 50 percent increase in the risk of lung cancer or mortality. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies diesel exhaust as a probable human carcinogen, and the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed the same classification. The California EPA estimates that 450 out of every million Californians are at risk of developing cancer due to diesel exhaust exposure.

Source of the above quote--
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/trucks_and_buses/page.cfm?pageID=238

More and more studies are eliminating any doubt that living near diesel exhaust is hazardous. A UK study (J Epidemiol Community Health 1997;51:151-159) looked at 24,458 children dying of leukemia and cancer in the UK over a 25 year period. It found that these children were 35% more likely than chance to have lived within 4 km (2.4 miles) of a major motorway.

The above information is from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 1997, "Hazard proximities of childhood cancers in Great Britain from 1953-80",  available from HazardProximitiesImage.pdf (1.5MB Full image PDF)
source -- http://www.albury.net.au/~tomjensen/diesel.htm

The following quotation is from the web site of the National Resources Defense Council.

The small particles which come from diesel exhaust are particularly dangerous because they are coated with a mixture of chemicals such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitroaromatics, benzene, dioxins, and other toxicants. The particles act like a special delivery system which places these toxic chemicals deep within our bodies. Some asthma medications use the principle of delivering a beneficial drug in a fine inhaled aerosol. Diesel exhaust is like a perversion of a drug delivery system which delivers hazardous toxicants into our lungs. The particles are retained in the body along with the toxic chemical hitchhikers which would otherwise be quickly eliminated. Thus the particles lengthen our exposures to the toxicants in diesel exhaust.

From:  http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/ebd/chap1.asp

There are many other web pages with more details. Goshen is not the only place with too many diesel trucks and buses that pollute our air.

About 460,000 people in Greater Cincinnati live in areas with high levels of diesel pollution, putting them at greater risk of developing asthma, cancer and other health problems related to breathing diesel fumes, according to a study being released today.That's nearly 25 percent of the area's population, an exposure level higher than the metropolitan areas of Columbus and Akron, where one-fifth in each city live in diesel "hot spots."

"Diesel exhaust is putting too many people at risk," said Staci Putney McLennan, clean-air program director for the Ohio Environmental Council, a Columbus-based advocacy group that issued the report.--from "Study: One-fourth of area lives with high diesel levels" by Matt Leingang, September 28, 2004, Enquirer.

The city of Albury, Australia, is also deciding whether to have an external truck route or an internal truck route. This web site cites numerous studies related to diesel toxins. It includes a link to a letter dated 5 July 2004 to Australian Prime Minister Jon Howard from Dr. Ray Kearney Ph. D., Immunologist, Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology, University of Sydney . It explains the health risks associated with an Internal Truck Route running through Albury. In his letter he lists the risks associated with diesel fume airborne toxins: "lung cancer deaths and accelerated tumour growth, increased cardio-vascular disease, limited blood flow and increased blood clotting, increased sensitivity to bacterial products in airways, and more severe viral asthma." The letter is an attempt to persuade the Australian government to build an external bypass rather then the planned internal bypass. Sound familiar?
This source is linked from - http://www.albury.net.au/~tomjensen/diesel.htm

The city administration of Goshen, Indiana, encourages trucks to travel through Goshen with their plan to widen the central corridor of highways through Goshen's neighborhoods. Several blocks of this "improvement" are already complete on Third Street as of this writing, October, 2004. Now they want to widen Madison Street. Next they will want to widen North Main Street and South Main Street.

In my opinion, the main businesses that will benefit from more toxins in our air will be the health care industry. The Cancer Center and other medical service businesses will have more patients. It is well established that our county ranks with the worst in the country for air quality. Citizens should let their representatives know that there are better ways things than inviting trucks to drive through our neighborhoods to improve the economic climate in Goshen. Do not be a victim of bad planning and poor highway design.

Sources for Elhart County air quality information.
http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/cap/county.tcl?fips_county_code=18039#maps
http://www.in.gov/idem/air/pm25standard/elkhartoverview.html
http://www.etruth.com/news/story/316615/

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