LOS ANGELES, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Health officials warned that some 4,000 people in California will die over the next 13 years as a result of pollution-related illness, it was reported Saturday.

    Officials cited diesel engines as a major cause of the deaths, the North County Times, a local newspaper, reported.

    The deaths would be eliminated if the diesel engines were cleaned up or replaced with modern power plants, the paper quoted health officials as saying.

    To save thousands of lives per year, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has proposed rules to regulate off-road diesel engines.

    But there have been wildly-contradictory estimates of how much it would cost to retrofit or replace 180,000 diesel engines in use across the state, and what the benefits might be.

    Construction and warehouse businesses across the state would be affected by the proposed smog rules affecting forklifts and bulldozers.

    CARB claimed that thousands of tons of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter that are launched into the atmosphere daily by construction equipment and other off-road industrial vehicles.

    Alexander Greiner, a local allergy physician, said there are more than 40 dangerous and toxic compounds in diesel exhaust.

    However, Construction industry advocates said it would cost 13 billion U.S. dollars to make that changeover, a switchover that cannot be afforded by the small construction companies that make up the bulwark of contracting firms.

    "The only option to comply is to get rid of your equipment, and when you get rid of equipment, you get rid of employees," said construction contractor Maichael Lewis, quoted by the paper.

    But clean air advocates challenged construction lobbyists to prove their estimates, and contended the clean-up would cost much less.