$8 Million Awarded to Reduce Emissions Nationwide
SAN FRANCISCO - The E.P.A. (EPA) has awarded $753,476 in Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) backing to the South Coast Air Quality Management District to replace 21 school buses and trucks with natural gas and electric ones. Of the 21 vehicles, eleven heavy-duty diesel short haul trucks will be replaced with newer compressed natural gas (CNG) engines and ten diesel school buses will be replaced with vehicles powered by CNG and battery-electric technology. 8 million dollars was awarded for 21 clean diesel plans nationwide.
"This plan to reduce diesel emissions is a great example of how collaboration among public and private partners can make a difference to our local communities," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "School children and residents of Los Angeles will be able to breathe cleaner, healthier air."
The effort is part of the West Coast Collaborative, a clean air partnership that leverages public and private funds to reduce emissions from the most polluting diesel sources in impacted communities. Along the West Coast, public, private and tribal partners from California, Hawaii, Oregon and Idaho received a total of nearly $3.5 million in backing to retrofit and replace old, polluting diesel vehicles and equipment, including school buses, and short and long haul trucks. This backing is part of EPA's DERA Fiscal Year 2014 allocation which will include engine replacements, repowers, and idle reduction technologies to clean up a variety of older diesel engines. DERA is set to expire in 2016
E.P.A. has implemented requirements to make newly manufactured diesel engines in excess of 90 percent cleaner, but many older diesel vehicles and equipment remain in operation and predate these standards. Older diesel engines emit large amounts of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. These pollutants are linked to health problems, including aggravated asthma, lung damage, and other serious health problems. Since 2008, the DERA plan has awarded in excess of 700 grants across the country in 600 communities. These plans have reduced emissions for in excess of 60,000 engines.
Reducing particulate matter emissions also reduces black carbon, which influences climate by directly absorbing light, reducing the reflectivity ("albedo") of snow and ice through deposition, and interacting with clouds.
Today's selected plans fund cleaner diesel engines that operate in economically disadvantaged communities whose residents suffer from higher-than-average instances of asthma, heart, and lung disease.
To learn more about this year's West Coast Collaborative DERA projects, visit:
http://www.westcoastcollaborative.org
For more information about EPA's National Clean Diesel campaign and the awarded DERA plans nationally, visit
www.epa.gov/cleandiesel.
