Durbin urges federal review of Metra air quality
Sen. Dick Durbin on Monday sent letters to the heads of several agencies asking them to review the findings of a recent investigative report which showed that Metra commuters and workers may be exposed to excessively high levels of diesel soot.
The letters were sent to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), a release from Durbin's office said.
“Today, I am calling on Metra, Amtrak and federal and state officials to review and respond to these findings and to take the steps necessary to ensure the air on and around our passenger trains is safe to breathe. It is absolutely critical that we limit the risk of adverse health effects for the Chicago region’s commuters and workers,” Durbin said in the release. “I was happy to hear that Metra has already organized a meeting with key state and local agencies tomorrow on this subject.”
Diesel exhaust contains many air pollutants, and has been linked to health problems such as cancer, heart attacks, respiratory diseases, diabetes and brain damage, the release said.
“People are breathing more than half their daily dose of soot pollution while commuting no matter how they get to work,” Joel J. Africk, President of the Respiratory Health Association, said. “But people making a green choice shouldn’t be endangering their health. Our antiquated transit system is harming our health and resources need to be targeted to cleaning up Metra’s antiquated trains so that people’s lives aren’t put at risk.”
Durbin also requested that the EPA review include an analysis of other sources of particulate air pollution, such as coal-fired power plants, heavy machinery and automobile and truck traffic, the release said.
The EPA has designated the Chicago area a “non-attainment” area, which means air pollution levels persistently exceed federal air quality standards, the release said.
Durbin called on the federal agencies to conduct an immediate inter-agency review which would include recommending steps necessary to reduce pollution from rail traffic in Northeastern Illinois.
Last week, the FTA awarded the Illinois Department of Transportation a $341,000 grant funded by a grant program created in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to install automatic shut-down and start-up systems in 27 locomotives in the Metra fleet, the release said.
Metra, which intends to use the funding to retrofit locomotives operating in their train yards, estimates that by shutting down instead of idling the locomotives, the automatic systems could save an estimated 800,000 gallons of diesel fuel and reduce CO2 emissions by an estimated 80,000 tons per year, according to the release.