Comment Log Display

Dear CARB members.

First, I am grateful for the work and service you provide to CA
and the progressive stance you take make it a better place to
live.

California is a wonderful place to raise a family.  As much as I
love Pleasanton, we feel the harmful effects of diesel exhaust (NOx
& PM) may have us moving to another state.  The asthmatics (age 43,
40, 10 and 8)  find it frustrating to need to stay  inside this
time of year because the smog and PM get thick in the tri-valley
area.  At the same time, it's not fair in the summer for people in
the San Joaquin basin to get all the bad air in the summer when it
blows from SF & LA into their basin. Even in the summer, we feel
the harmful effects of compression engines since Pleasanton is on
the 580 and 680 cooridor with many afternoons of bumper to bumper
18 wheelers inching their way over the Altimont pass.

Should we Californians have to bear the burden of bad air quality
and unhealthy lungs in the name of commerce and consumption for the
whole nation?  On behalf of the asthmatics and children throughout
CA, the most important way to make CA better for everyone is to
improve the air we breathe. PM filter retrofits on all compression
engines should become mandatory immediately (2009!).

Yes, there will be a lot of complaints from trucking industries,
international shipping organizations and even city governments
(mandated to retrofit bus & garbage fleets), but for the sake of
our kids....the harmful effects of diesel emissions must go.  It's
time to take back the quality of our air from those that spew in
the name of commerce.

Thank you for reading and doing the work you do.

Mark, Idyll, Luke & Morgan Szymczak
and all the residents of Pleasanton