NATIONAL CITY -- Sniff the air in National City's Old Town neighborhood and you'll usually get a noseful of diesel exhaust, paint fumes and other noxious vapors.

It's been that way for years on the west side of this compact, gritty city where small, early 20th-century homes sit alongside auto body shops, welding businesses, machine shops and other industrial businesses. But now neighbors, environmental activists and teachers are honing in on one business -- Momax Truck Driving School -- and pressuring city officials to make the business move.

At least three days a week, aspiring drivers turn and park big- rig trucks, spewing fumes at nearby homes and Kimball Elementary School, which backs up to the area where Momax students practice.

Teachers say the fumes, noise and vibration from Momax trucks disrupt classrooms and harm students. Sometimes the fumes are so strong kids cover their noses with clothing to block the smell.

Neighbors are also blaming Momax fumes for inducing an asthma attack that killed Javier Jimenez, 67, last week.

This week residents and activists met with City Council members Frank Parra and Luis Natividad. The group wants the council to declare the business a public nuisance and ban truck and bus driving schools from operating next to a school.

After the meeting Parra and Natividad asked the city attorney to investigate and report back to the council Feb. 20.

Moises Gutierrez Sr., who owns Momax Truck Driving School, says he feels unfairly singled out. He says he is operating a legal business and is adhering to zoning and code enforcement laws.

"There's machine shops up there that run all day long, there's the train," Gutierrez said. "I'm not an insensitive person. I understand there's a school there and people living up there," he said pointing to the ceiling. "I'm doing everything I can to stay out of their way."

He says he has spoken with representatives from Kimball Elementary and the Environmental Health Coalition, a local activist group, and told them he would reduce practice hours from five days a week to three.

"I'm making a big effort," he said. "I feel bad that he (Javier Jimenez) died, but nobody can say he died because of my truck."

The Jimenez family has lived upstairs from the Momax office on West 19th Street near Harding Avenue for 12 years. Javier Jimenez's former bedroom overlooks the lot where trucking students practice.

The Jimenezes say when they open their windows, they're blasted with Momax exhaust. Although doctors haven't said why Javier Jimenez died, family members say his asthma developed after Momax moved in three years ago.

He had frequent coughing attacks that would send him to the doctor, said his wife, Luz Elena Jimenez. The day he died, she watched her husband turn purple before passing out face down, she said.

One of the couple's adult sons, Jose Jimenez, worries about his mother, who has also been sent to the emergency room with bronchial problems.

"My mom is sick and I don't want the same thing to happen to her," he said.

National City's entire west side, which spans from Interstate 5 to National City Boulevard and from Eighth Street to 24th Street, is zoned light industrial/residential. That means in the Old Town neighborhood, children play on the streets in front of their homes - - streets where workers paint cars and weld metal. It's a neighborhood where a row of five houses sits on a dirt road. It's a neighborhood, some say, you don't leave without a case of asthma.

The Environmental Health Coalition has conducted surveys on the city's west side and found about 14 percent of the residents have asthma. Tony LoPresti, a policy advocate with the group, says he believes the rate is higher because about 30 percent of the neighborhood's children and about 50 percent of the adults don't have health insurance and may be undiagnosed.

The coalition says the truck business poses a particular hazard because particulate matter in the exhaust can embed in lungs, leading to health problems such as asthma. A recent University of Southern California study found that children who live near a major highway are more likely to develop asthma or other respiratory diseases and their lung development may be stunted, said James Gauderman, an associate professor of preventative medicine at USC's medical school.

Coalition workers recently tested the air at the Momax site, using a particle counter known as a P-track. They measured the smallest particles, because they are considered more dangerous. The test at City Hall, used as control site, found about 25,000 particles per cubic centimeter. Near a moving Momax truck, that number shot up to 150,000 particles per cubic centimeter, LoPresti said. He said there isn't an established safe particle count.

Pat and Maria Carter, who live behind Momax, say the company's 1988 tractor truck and 1967 bus throw off exhaust heavy enough to see. The day Jimenez died, Maria Carter recalled seeing thick smoke billowing from Momax.

"I looked out the window and I saw all this smoke," Maria Carter said. "I thought it was a fire."

The Rev. Edmundo Zarate became the priest at St. Anthony of Padua Church, just down the street from Momax, about six months ago. He said the fumes are overwhelming.

"Since I moved here, I have gotten asthma and get headaches every day," he said.

Fran Hastings, a teacher at Kimball since 1979, said spending 28 years in a highly polluted area has affected her health.

OVERVIEW

Background: Residents are complaining about the fumes emitted from Momax Truck Driving School in National City. The neighborhood is a mix of homes and industrial businesses.

What's changing: Activists, school employees and neighbors are asking the City Council to pass a law banning truck and bus driving schools from operating near a school.

The future: City Attorney George Eiser will investigate the complaint and report back to the City Council on Feb. 20.