Clean-air program offers cash to get old trucks off the road
— -- Lewis Brown's 1992 Kenworth 18-wheeler had more than a million miles on it when he bought it, and he's added another million making short runs to and from the Port of Charleston, S.C.
Brown is an independent operator, and buying a newer truck that wouldn't cough out a trail of blue smoke everywhere he went was not within his means — until now.
A program implemented this year by the South Carolina Ports Authority, in conjunction with the state's Department of Health and Environmental Control and with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection agency, made it feasible for him to scrap the Kenworth for a 2004 Volvo that not only produces significantly less toxic emissions but also gets a couple of more miles to the gallon.
Similar to the federal Cash for Clunkers initiative in 2009, the Charleston air cleanup program, and others like it nationwide, offers truckers a $5,000 incentive plus the scrap value of their truck, if it was made before 1994, to buy a 2004 or newer model truck, said Byron Miller, a spokesman for the state Ports Authority.
James Jack, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation in Sacramento, says 90% of the drivers who haul freight from the nation's ports are independent, responsible for their own trucks.
"There's a whole lot of drivers out there. The reason why they're holding onto their older trucks is they really can't afford a newer truck," Brown said.
Programs providing cash and low-interest loans for newer trucks also are underway at ports in Seattle and Tacoma, Wash.; Oakland and Los Angeles/Long Beach, Calif.; Houston; New York/New Jersey; and Norfolk, Va., Jack says. The programs started early last year, with more coming on board in January.
The twist in Charleston and Norfolk is that the programs are voluntary, Jack said. The others are requiring owners of older trucks to phase them out in order to continue to use them at the ports, he said.
The EPA's new SmartWay initiative, which provides much of the funding for these programs, focuses on trucks that make short hauls from ports to distribution centers and railheads, because many of them are older and dirtier than most trucks used on long trips, Jack said.
Margo Oge, director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, says the EPA awarded 350 grants from 2008-2010, reaching every state and the District of Columbia, to implement a wide variety of clean diesel projects. The EPA reports funding for those grants totaled $470 million — but did not have a breakdown of how much went specifically to the port truck projects.
Getting older trucks off the road could make a big difference, according to the EPA. Trucks built before new emissions standards went into place in 1994 spew out 60 times more fine particle emissions, which are linked to premature deaths, heart attacks and childhood asthma, than those built in 2007 or later, the EPA reports.
A Eugene, Ore.-based non-profit called Cascade Sierra Solutions has helped get 5,506 old trucks off the road through partnerships with ports, the EPA and donors, according to CEO Sharon Banks.
So far, that has saved more than 28 million gallons of fuel and reduced carbon-dioxide emissions by more than 285,000 metric tons, she said.
"With all the mortgage meltdown and everything that goes with it, even some of the bigger businesses have had a hard time getting new vehicles," Banks said. "So we're trying to get them in the best, cleanest truck they can have within their budget."
The Coalition for Responsible Transportation, along with EPA and the Environmental Defense Fund, in June announced a program in which retailers such as Walmart, Target and The Home Depot have agreed to replace older trucks to reduce particulate matter emissions by 50%, and to ship at least 75% of their port cargo by truckers with newer, cleaner trucks within three years, according to Jack.
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