Old diesel engine emissions kill more than 20,000 Americans prematurely every year, Boston-based environmental group Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has said. According to a study by the group, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles suffer from the highest number of premature deaths due to such emissions.
The CATF assessed the benefits of national air quality policies, and quantified the health impacts of fine particle air pollution from America's diesel fleet. According to CATF, the report found that fine particle pollution from diesels shortens the lives of nearly 21,000 people annually, including almost 3,000 early deaths due to lung cancer. Further, over 400,000 Americans suffer every year from asthma attacks and a much larger number from respiratory problems associated with fine particles from diesel vehicles. The report also showed that diesel exhaust poses a cancer risk that is 7.5 times more than the combined total cancer risk from all other air toxins.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued regulations that require dramatic reductions in emissions from new diesel vehicles starting in 2007. However, only new vehicles are included in these regulations. According to Conrad Schneider, who is the co-author of the CATF report, the regulations don't affect millions of older trucks, buses and construction engines. Calling the EPA rules ‘great’, Schneider said, “They (the engines) will hold new engines to higher standards. In the meantime, we're stuck with a legacy of dirty diesel engines.”
However, Diesel Technology Forum, a Washington-based industry group, has criticized the findings of the CATF. Allen Schaeffer, executive director, Diesel Technology Forum, in a statement posted on the group’s Web site, said the data on which the CATF findings are based is very old. He said that that tailpipe emission from trucks and buses today has been reduced by over 80 per cent as compared to engines built in the late 1980s. Because of the improvements, diesel emissions represent a very small portion of the nationwide particulate inventory as cataloged by the EPA. Schaeffer added that by 2007, manufacturers would have reduced key exhaust components by another 90 per cent, further diminishing diesel's role in local air quality concerns.
Meanwhile, the EPA has announced US$ 1.6 million in grants for 18 diesel engine retrofit projects under its Clean Diesel Campaign. Recipients of the grants will retrofit diesel vehicles and equipment with advanced technologies and cleaner fuels to reduce emissions of particulate matter and other pollutants. “These projects are vital to achieving clean air,” said acting EPA administrator Steve Johnson. The Clean Diesel Campaign combines both regulatory and voluntary efforts to reduce emissions from new diesel engines as well as existing diesel engines by 2014.
