September 18, 2006

The Philadelphia Diesel Difference - Working Group Meeting
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC)
190 North Independence Mall West,
8th Floor,
Philadelphia, PA 19106

IN ATTENDANCE:

Michael Boyer, DVRPC
Francine Carlini, PADEP
Eric Cheung, Clean Air Council
Morris Fine, AMS
Kirt Flowers, Amtrak
Bill Gillespie, MARAMA
Sean Greene, DVRPC
Joe Grinkewicz, Philadelphia School District
Emily Landsburg, Energy Cooperative/Fry-O-Diesel
Jack LeBeau, EHRF
Cynthia McKeown, SPC/Camden Iron and Metal
Robert Neff, PA Turnpike
Anthony Santaniello, PCPC
Jack Schweitzer, Amtrak
Dan Snowden, PennDOT/EQAD/PZ
Alison Tracy, AMS
Chris Trostle, PADEP/BAQ

MINUTES TAKEN BY:

Alison Tracy

INTRODUCTIONS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Morris welcomed the group and introduced Bill Gillespie of MARAMA who will be discussing diesel retrofits in construction applications today.

EPA Regions 1, 2 and 3 are organizing a funding workshop to be held in New York City this fall. Venue and date are yet to be determined, but the event will span 1 ½ days and will cover the various funding mechanisms for completing diesel emissions reduction projects. The EPA is holding an Air Toxics Industry Partnership event tomorrow at the Army Corps of Engineers Offices at the Wanamaker Building in Philadelphia. The event will serve as a workshop and orientation for potential partners in a voluntary effort to reduce air toxics emissions in the City over and above federal, state and local regulations. The City will be holding a community meeting of its Air Pollution Control Board on October 3rd at 5:30 pm at the Houston Center, site of United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia, located at 8th Street and Snyder Avenue in South Philadelphia. The Board typically has 1-2 meetings a year at a location outside Center City, in order to make it easier for local residents to attend the meetings and ask questions. This site was chosen because the Ports Subcommittee has a preexisting relationship with United Communities and is currently working with them on implementing the CARE grant.

EPA Region 3 will be issuing a Request for Proposals by next week that will offer a competitive $300,000 grant for clean diesel projects in the Region's 6 states. Awards will be announced in early January, and the Diesel Collaborative is in the process of preparing potential projects to include in a larger proposal. The MDC would like to include several projects from different sectors and geographic areas. If you would like to propose a project for the funds, please contact Eric. The grant would not fund school buses.

Air Management Services has been in touch with the Philadelphia Fire Department regarding retrofitting its fire trucks. The retrofits would most likely be DOCs since the engines of these vehicles generally do not get hot enough to burn off excess carbon as part of a passive regeneration cycle. Funding options for this project are being discussed, and Morris will keep the group updated on any developments.

The Diesel Collaborative and MARAMA held an Emissions Calculation Workshop recently that covered EPA's soon-to-be-released Diesel Emissions Calculator. The Calculator will be a web-based interface that will assist users in estimating emissions reductions from various types of clean diesel projects, ranging from retrofits to truck stop electrification to clean fuels. Future EPA diesel project grant applications will require emissions reduction estimates using this system. After the workshop, the MDC held a meeting of its Steering Committee. This Committee is comprised of all the state air directors who will guide the group's activities. During the meeting, subgroup leaders gave presentations on their work so far, and documents detailing fiscal sponsorship of the Collaborative as well as procedures for prioritizing projects were approved.

Alison is compiling her quarterly report to EPA, and would like group members to contact her if they are aware of any clean diesel projects happening locally that may not already be documented.

PHILADELPHIA DIESEL DIFFERENCE ACTIVITIES UPDATE:

Eric discussed the status of our Fleet Commitments list. Most recently, a commitment was received from Moyer Packing, a result of our corporate mailing from last year. Packer and Tioga are signed on to receive NCDC retrofit funds and four vendors have submitted bids for retrofitting offroad vehicles at the two ports. Ideally, the Task Force would like to split the retrofits evenly between the two terminals.

In New Hanover, a group endeavoring to open a quarry facility has expressed interest in sponsoring retrofits on school buses for the Boyertown School District. Eric will also discuss retrofitting quarry equipment with them. One obstacle is that the School District contracts out its bus services with a company that serves another school district in the area, so there is some concern about whether it will be feasible to dedicate the retrofitted vehicles solely for use in Boyertown, as that is where the quarry company would be located and where it would want to work on its public relations. Incidentally, PDD also has a commitment for retrofitting New Hanover's municipal fleet but its fleet consists of only a handful of vehicles.

Eric noted that in conjunction with AMS' work in coordinating with fire departments to implement retrofits, PDD will be working directly with local fire department fleet in the next year to encourage them to join our willing fleets list. Many of these fleets are separate from the municipal fleets we have been targeting to date. Chris Trostle asked whether we were aware of problems with DOCs on fire trucks, and Morris replied that the issue did not come up when discussing the matter with Fleet Management, though it was concluded that the engine heat would be insufficient to allow the operation of particulate filters.

The Clean Air Council has received funding from the Carlisle Health and Wellness Foundation to draft a report on air quality in their area. The report has been completed and will be sent out in October. Their main concern is a stretch of road called the "Miracle Mile" that connects I-81 and the Turnpike, which causes large volumes of truck traffic to pass through the community. The inventory shows, however, that pollution in the area largely comes from stationary sources. CAC plans to start a stakeholder group in Carlisle similar to PDD.

COMMITTEE UPDATES:

The Ports Task Force held a meeting recently at United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia, in an effort to reach out to community stakeholders as part of its CARE grant. It also is still working to spend funds received through the National Clean Diesel Campaign Grant. Vehicles retrofitted will depend on specifications of the various bids received. The group is also working on Air, Water and Brownfields reports in conjunction with this project. The Water report is nearly complete.

GRANTS UPDATE:

EPA Region 3 will be issuing an RFP for clean diesel projects later this week and MARAMA is planning to submit a comprehensive grant proposal including an array of different projects from across the region, and from various sector areas. A conference call may be scheduled to discuss how to plan for submitting Philadelphia area proposals.

The Department of Energy has made its awards for its anti-idling grant, and unfortunately CAC's proposal was not funded. DEP's AFIG grant is still open until early October, and will pay for the incremental cost of alternative fuels-specifically, biodiesel and ethanol-as well as alternative fuel infrastructure.

Emily added that today the Energy Cooperative is delivering its first shipment of B20 to Great Valley School District. This is not their Fry-O-Diesel product, but another refined fuel that the Cooperative is distributing. It will be running the school's entire fleet. She suggested that PDD consider Great valley for recognition in the future.

MONTHLY PRESENTATION:

Bill Gillespie gave a presentation on the Diesel Collaborative's Construction sector group. The subgroup has been working to identify large construction projects in the region, and has looked into how contract language has been used to mandate retrofits in construction applications. They are also currently evaluating concrete trucks and how technology can be implemented to reduce their engine idling times. There are 2 million diesel engines in use in the U.S. for construction, and 31% of those were manufactured before any kind of regulations were in place to control their emissions. He reviewed the use of contract language in Boston's "Big Dig" project which required retrofits for 60 vehicles and reduced emissions by 200 tons over a period of 4-5 years. These were mainly DOCs with some DPFs also used. He noted that legal concerns can arise in including mandates for retrofits, as they sometimes conflict with Federal preemption rules. Another project that contractually required retrofits was the Inter-County Connector in Maryland.

After the presentation, meeting participants gave some comments. There was discussion about the pros and cons of various retrofit technologies and their best uses. Kirt Flowers of Amtrak talked about their experience using DOCs on some of its heavy duty offroad diesel equipment. It was suggested that any more specific questions be referred to technology vendors. One group member brought up the potential health benefits to vehicle operators, such as the Fire Department, where staff members have urged the use of technology to improve ambient air quality near their vehicles during use. It was noted that for vehicles that do not generate enough heat to sustain a passive regeneration particulate filter, an active regeneration filter-one which much be plugged into an electrical outlet after use-can be implemented instead. Finally, Robert Neff announced that the Turnpike's fleet will soon be running on B5 in 19 locations statewide, and that Mike McClurkin is retiring.

NEXT MEETING AND LOCATION:

The next meeting will be held October 16, 2006 at DVRPC.