Transcript:
Every day, thousands of diesel trucks drive through Little Village and other Latino neighborhoods in southwest Chicago, and the pollution they emit can worsen asthma and other ailments.
Minuche: “We’ve seen through conversations with residents … that diesel truck pollution and traffic is a big concern.”
Melanie Minuche is with the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.
Her group is part of a coalition that’s pushing Illinois to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks rule. This policy would require truck makers to accelerate the transition to electric trucks and other zero-emission vehicles.
The coalition partnered on a recent study that shows it could save lives.
Researchers at Northwestern University studied the impact of replacing about half of the medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in the Chicago area with zero-emission vehicles.
They found that the reduced pollution would result in about 500 fewer premature deaths and 600 fewer new childhood asthma cases across the city each year.
Minuche: “The Advanced Clean Trucks rule, we think, is really important to ensuring that communities on the southwest side have access to breathing in cleaner air.”
… improving the health of people and the planet.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
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