By Rick Shapiro, Railroad Worker Illness and FELA Attorney

Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, the two largest freight railroads providing service to ports in California (CA), have been sued by a coalition of environmental groups who claim that the diesel fumes emitted by the trucks, heavy equipment and locomotives at the companies’ rail yards pose an unacceptable cancer and lung disease risk to railroad employees and people living and working in communities around the yards.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit,

Millions of Californians are exposed to toxic levels of pollution from BNSF and UP’s operations. The California Air Resources Board has found that communities even 8 miles away from some of BNSF and UP’s rail yards suffer from increased cancer risk. … Almost every week, the scientific community releases new studies showing the toxicity of diesel exhaust, which is associated with premature death, cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and even obesity and diabetes. Some researchers have even found a correlation between diesel exhaust and premature birth and lower IQ in children.

The East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice are also suing the railroads on behalf of people’s who have reported health problems as a result of their exposure to diesel fumes.

In a blog post about the federal suit, the NRDC cites studies that indicate recent efforts by BNSF and UP to clean up operation at their California yards have still left some nearby residents at risks for cancers and other illnesses that are 50 times higher than state standards. A key goal of the legal action is to have particulates in diesel exhaust declared a solid waste that is subject to the same federal regulations as hazardous solid waste, just as unburned diesel fuel itself is. Should that happen, all railroads — including Amtrak, CSX and Norfolk Southern — would be affected.

The lawsuit is timely. I wrote earlier in 2011 that researchers have begun tracking diesel emissions from a Los Angeles-area BNSF rail yard while at the same time recording health problems for people living in the neighborhood bordering the yard. Shortly after I posted that blog, one of my Virginia-based FELA attorneys reported that formaldehyde in diesel exhaust had been definitively categorized as a carcinogen by federal health and workplace safety officials.

Rail employees have some of the heaviest daily exposures to diesel exhaust.While the negative health effects of long-term exposure to diesel fumes have long been recognized by doctors, regulators and lawyers, most railroad workers have remained completely unaware that numerous carcinogens are contained in diesel exhaust. Awareness of “diesel asthma” has also been growing, and I have helped a conductor who developed asthma and became unable to work after spending years breathing exhaust from diesel-powered locomotives receive a substantial FELA settlement from the rail company that had employed him.

It’s too soon to know how the environmental groups’ lawsuit against BNSF and Union Pacific will turn out, or even whether the plaintiffs will have their day in court. However, any effort that calls attention to the health risks from diesel fume exposure has the welcome potential to make railroad work for conductors, engineers, carmen trackmen and others safer, as well as living and working near rail yards less dangerous.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases. Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.