ELWOOD, Ill.—When Terri Papesh says she can’t stand the smell of diesel, she doesn’t mean it figuratively. The 62-year-old has a variety of health problems that make her more sensitive to the sulfur dioxide molecules spewing from the tailpipes of semi-trucks. “I have literally had times where diesel fumes would send me into an asthma attack,” she said.

The problem is that she lives a few miles from North America’s largest inland intermodal transport hub, where trucks are constantly in and out to pick up and drop off goods moving around the country. And now that traffic is poised to grow in a big way.

NorthPoint Development is building a warehouse project on 4,000 acres not far from the existing 6,400-acre CenterPoint Intermodal Center in Will County. An analysis for the developer estimat

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