I recieved this pamphlet in the mail about 30 min ago. It appears that I live in a "Diesel Death Zone".


I added a RED Square to show something they do not speak off; within the red square are 4 large Oil Refinerys and no one seems concerned that they might be producing some of the air qualit problems.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

What is going on: Trucking companies contract private truck owners to move the empty and full containers in and out of the Port of Long Beach (and the adjacent Port of Los Angeles). The truck driver gets paid a flat fee for each container he picks up and delivers - ever thing else including all operating cost to keep his/her truck running is the responsibility of the driver. The drivers do not make much and you do not need a nice truck to deliver containers (a lot of which are empty) and there is a lot of ratty looking and running trucks.
The other way is a small truck company buys up a bunch of old trucks and pays the drivers some hourly wage which is $10/hour or less to drive the company owned ratty truck.

Text from the pamphlet:
84% of our cancer risk is from dirty diesel exhaust
1in 5 children in Long Beach suffer from Asthma-twice the national average.
Poisonous diesel pollution from the profitable, $300 billion port-related industry leads to premature deaths, sky-high cancer-risk rates, smog and dangerous child hood asthma.
Port trade is exploding, but big corporations are still boosting their profits by refusing to pay for their pollution-and by forcing us to foot the bill.
Right now, the Port of Long Beach can dramatically reduce deadly diesel pollution-if our Harbor Commissioners will stand up to industry polluters and pass a real “Clean Trucks Program” that requires the cleanest trucks and fixes the broken trucking system. Cleaner, cost-effective alternative fuel solutions exist today-but industry is lobbying hard against them.
Tell Long Beach Harbor Commissioners that a real clean trucks program uset have the highest standards, including:1-Best available control technology [clean alt-fuel trucks] Diesel port trucks must be replaced with the cleanest available-based on Best Available Control Technology (BACT) for toxic diesel soot, smog-forming pollutants and greenhouse gases. At least 50% of the new fleet must be the alternative-fuel trucks that are the cleanest available, as outlined in the Ports’ Clean Air Action Plan.
2-Employee status for drivers. It’s the only way to fix the broken system-so trucking companies are accountable for environmental and safety maintenance of their trucks.
3-Long-term strategy. The Ports must continue increasing clean air standards after the 5-year program ends to keep pace with growingt trade and spur clean tech advances.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

they are not going to be happy till everyone drives a bicycle. Try delivering a container with that!

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83 300SD Dark Silver Dark brown inside

CA hippies! You should have smoked them!

They hate progress, and business, making money and all that good stuff. That port smells like money and international trade to me, and its a sweet odor!

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Hey Hattie,
I'm a Californinian (unfortunately) born and bred,not typical to the mold however so don't just judge us all.

That said, this is a whole buncha political BS....I don't even know where to start anymore.......Have you ever reached the point of total frustration with the system you can't control that you just throw up your arms wondering if anyone really has a true grasp of the sense of reality in this world anymore?.....so many stupid idiotic things and ploys happen in life anymore that you'd think someone with a lick of common sense would kill in a heartbeat....why bother complaining anymore, nobody will bother with it anyway, thats why this all happens......lemming syndrome.

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Chris
64 190D R.I.P.
80 240D W/617 engine -for sale
82 240D -for sale

How timely. I am in the process of moving a bunch of business out of Carson, CA and out to Parker, AZ.

CA is running a lot of business out of state. I just hope they don't whine when their blue collar folks can't find work.

I used to do about a million a year in CA. Soon it will be zero. And you know that story has been repeated a bunch of times.


Tim

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2009 VW TDI Jetta Sportwagon 172k miles (rear-ended harder than Elton John on 8/4/13. Total loss)

1991 Volvo 240 142k miles (T-boned by a stop sign runner. Total loss)

I agree with the idea of decreasing emissions but they cannot expect all the truck companies and truck drivers to go out and buy new state of the art trucks. (I do not think that they even realize that an old truck could be retrofitted with a newer cleaner burning engine.)
I would be happy if they would crack down on the trucks that are have excessive gray/black smoke out of the stack all of the time (when not accelerating or with light loads) due to being worn out. They cannot even enforce that.
They claim the 45% of the nations goods pass through the Port of Long Beach and go down the Freeway not even ¼ mile from my house and that within in the next 10 years they expect it to rise to 65% of the nations goods.
So part of the emissions problem is related to the volume of vehicles and I do not think that there is much that can be done about that.
A lot of the Port shipments end up in huge ware houses in an area 30-40 miles away called the Inland Empire. There is some rail roads that head out there and there is 1 rail line locally. There was some talk of increasing the number of rail lines as the Freeway I spoke of earlier is already inadequate but is all talk.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Southren California has so many immigrants looking for any sort of job that good paying Blue Collar jobs have dwindled anyway.
As I drive down the main street of long beach I see many empty buildings that ounce had businesses. I do not belive that the city government even cares as long as the Port is bringing in the big bucks.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

And since most of these immigrants are ILLEGAL ALIENS that Californians just throw the border open for, more businesses are going to go out of businesses or just move altogether! Driving wages downward is the directive here and soon, good jobs won't be available anymore.

W is responsible for our borders; not Arnold.

Even in central Alaksa half the kitchen and table help in resturants is hispanic. It is not just the western states that can't survive w/o that help. It is pervasive throughout the US.

Do you want one of those GOOD jobs???

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Terry Allison
N. Calif. & Boca Chica, Panama

09' E320 Bluetec 77k (USA)
09' Hyundai Santa Fe Diesel 48k (S.A.)

I thought that the huge container ships were a major contributing factor to the diesel death zone, THey would let those suckers 'idle' for a week while they were being unloaded, last I heard they were gonna make them plug into shore power and shut down their engine(s) while in port.

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Cheers,
Robert

The illegal alien problem is also a result of business wanting them to be here. When they come here the get here with what they can carry. Everthing else they have to buy (and if they get family here there is a lot of kids that need stuff). There buying stuff means the business people do not put pressure on the Gov. Hiring them is a bit riskier if the employer gets caught.
Getting back to my origiona threas: Leagal or otherwise Aliens also make up about 85% of the drivers (and hear speak) that I see behind the wheel. They are often the low paid drivers of the container hauling companies or the private contracted owners that haul containers. So simply by numbers alone they are the ones driving poorly maintained trucks.
I was a mechanic for a container company for 3.5 years. These trucks would come in to pick up a cantainer chassie (trailer). The brakes and turn signals would not be working; leaking air brake system, and I have see pieces of trucks just fall off while they are ideling waiting for a container.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

You have a good point the writers of the pamphlet are not considering all of the possible sources. The people who sent me the pamphlet know the air quality is bad and blame what they see; the trucks. I put that red square on the map to show where there are 4 large oil refineries. These also effect the air quality and now that I think about it there is also the Long Beach City electrical generation plant it that same dead zone.
Most of the ships are from other countries and are hard to regulate.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

The SPP (One of Bush's "Progroms"),Basically a Norte Americano Union composed
of Mexico,USA and Canada (OUTSIDE of ALL three country's constitutional laws)
[These clowns: Bush,The Mexican Emperor(of the Moment) and Canada's Prime
Minister(of the Moment) have enacted supra-governmental agreements ...
without input or controls of ANY of the constitutional officers (congresspeople,
members of parliment ...does Mexico has any sort of representatives?) or the
Citizens of the countries involved]
They have designed Newassports ,a Currency(an Amero sort of like the Euro)
,Etc.
One of the programs is an eight lane superhighway from the Mexican west
coast ports through the U.S. to Canada.
This would eliminate the U.S. west coast ports and their threat of ILA/LABOR
strikes.
The Mexican west coast ports are 400 miles closer to the U.S. east coast
than California's ports.
This would also help strangle the Teamsters union's hold on U.S. trucking,
since Mexican truckers will drive/be able to operate any old kind of S**T
trucks on U.S. roads.

If you're even in a tertiary supply or support industry to the U.S. West Coast
ports...Stand By For A Great Big Anal Experience,brought to you without
the benefit of a Proctologist (Unless you think of Cheney as a Rectal Doctor).

another thread comes to mind, what's the return address? Time to revive the killdozer.

Killdozer: Armor plated dozer goes nuts

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1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!