December 10, 2007

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:
Bahri Aliriza, Polytrade International Corp.
Jim Black, Clean Air Council
Francine Carlini, PADEP
Eric Cheung, Clean Air Council
Fred Cummings, City of Philadelphia Division of Aviation
Sean Greene, DVRPC
Darlene Heep, City of Philadelphia Law Department
Thomas Huynh, City of Philadelphia, Air Management Services
Karl Ingram
Bill Jones, U.S. EPA
Lisa Magee, Philadelphia Regional Port Authority
Urszula Miezio, Johnson Matthey
Alison Riley, City of Philadelphia, Air Management Services
Dan Snowden, PennDOT
Ali Tangoren, Polytrade International Corp.
Emine Tangoren, Polytrade International Corp.
Jennifer Went, U.S. EPA

MINUTES TAKEN BY:
Eric Cheung

INTRODUCTIONS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Alison reported that she participated in a "Sustainable Skylines" meeting with EPA. If the City decides to undertake this initiative, it would develop a plan covering a variety of environmental actions with possible financial support from EPA.

Congress is looking at passing a new law concerning marine fuel. The rule would require ships operating within 200 miles of a U.S. coast line to use fuel that has 1,000 ppm or less sulfur content. The City has been asked to comment on this proposed law. In other national news, the Biodiesel Board has reported that the U.S. House has passed an energy bill that would require 1 billion gallons of biomass-based fuel be blended into the diesel supply by 2012.

Alison noted that both the MDC grant to the City to retrofit firetrucks and the AFIG grant to cover the purchase of biodiesel fuel and tank have been finalized. She added that the City's Air Quality Improvement Fund grant opportunity for environmental improvement projects involving City departments is closed. The only relevant applications for this opportunity were tree-planting projects.

Alison announced that she is chairing the MDC urban fleets section working group and that a conference call was coming up. Also conference calls for the construction and good movement section working groups were scheduled for later in the week. Lastly, Alison requested Diesel Difference Working Group members to forward any news item they wanted included in the next "Beyond The Fumes…" quarterly newsletter.

PHILADELPHIA DIESEL DIFFERENCE ACTIVITIES UPDATE:
Eric reported that he sent out a mailing to over 100 waste hauler fleets in the Philadelphia area. While most of these fleets were smaller "mom and pop" operations, the list of recipients included waste hauling companies that Alison had sent anti-idling information to at an earlier time. The mailing provided information on PDD and clean diesel strategies and invited the fleets to sign onto PDD's commitment form. Two fleets have signed the forms and Eric will be meeting with at least one fleet in the next week.

COMMITTEE UPDATES:
The final reports under the EPA CARE grant are currently being prepared. Currently, Clean Air Council is focusing on stormwater management at the ports with funding being provided by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Pennsylvania-administered Coastal Zone Management grant. The Council expects environmental management systems to be its next focus at the ports.

GRANT UPDATES:
Eric explained that the Council proposed an emissions inventory project for the EPA Region 3's Port RFP. While the Council initially considered submitting a proposal to employ innovative diesel-reducing technologies in port applications, it was unable to find a port entity to partner with in time for the grant deadline. Eric added that the Philadelphia was applying for U.S. DOE "Solar Cities" funding.

ONE MINUTE UPDATES:
Dan Snowden said PennDOT's chief counsel was looking into the City's proposed diesel retrofit-forcing requirements for construction projects in Philadelphia. Since many of these projects receive state funding it was felt that PennDOT should review such language beforehand.

Bill Jones reported that decisions on what projects to award EPA Mobile Source Outreach money to have been delayed until January. He added that another University of Southern California study addressing adverse health impacts and close proximity to highways has been released. Lastly he encouraged interested individuals to participate in the upcoming MDC Construction Sector Working Group conference call. The call will feature New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority talking about DPFs being installed on construction equipment at two of its project sites

Eric said that he is working on a historical presentation for Clean Air Council's upcoming 40th Anniversary reception.

Fred Cummings noted that the next Green Airport Air Quality subcommittee meeting will be held at the end of January.

Darlene Heep said the City is focusing its attention on the South Street Bridge construction project and really wants to be able to include a diesel retrofit provision in any solicitation for bids that goes out to construction companies. She also mentioned that she would be interested in having Chestnut Hill retrofit some of its smaller diesel-powered vehicles like street sweepers. She asked if it would be possible to get a grant to cover this cost.

Karl Ingram asked if PDD does anything concerning waste oil. Alison responded that he would need to ask the Water Department about this.

MONTHLY PRESENTATION:
Jennifer Went of the U.S. EPA's National Clean Diesel Campaign presented on the Diesel Emissions Quantifier. Jennifer is the new Mid-Atlantic Diesel collaborative liaison between U.S. EPA Region 3 and headquarters.

Jennifer explained that the impetus for the Quantifier was EPA's desire to come up with a system for measuring fleet emissions that everyone can use. The Quantifier was released a year ago and is constantly being updated. While the appearance of the Quantifier is meant to be user-friendly with drop-down menus and website accessibility, it is an overlay on top of a more complex model. Recent updates in the Quantifier have yielded new features like the ability to save up to three different fleet scenarios, which makes it easier to make small changes when needed. In addition there is also a feature that generates spreadsheets for use in EPA grant proposals that specifically call for emissions analysis. The Quantifier works by requesting certain information about a particular fleet and then calculating the emissions produced before and after a given clean diesel technology is employed.

Jennifer explained that when selecting the diesel-powered vehicles and equipment for a particular fleet, the Quantifier divides them into sector categories. Some items can fall into multiple categories (e.g., forklifts). For diesel-powered vehicles, the user needs to input make and model information, while with non-road equipment engine horsepower and usage rate are also required. EPA is still working on adding a section for light duty diesel vehicles, according to Jennifer.

If the goal is to obtain a ballpark estimate for total emissions from a given fleet, Jennifer advised users to just lump everything together under the same model year in order to make the process easier. For more specific and accurate information, one should enter each vehicle's individual information separately.

Going through a demonstration of the Quantifier, Jennifer pointed out some common issues that come up. Buses have nothing listed prior to Model Year 1990, since they should already have been removed from the marketplace. When selecting fuel type, the user should pick the fuel the fleet is using now and not what the fleet intends to switch to. Similarly for the idling hours input, the user should look at current operational data, and not how many hours are going to be cut. Commas should not be entered into the Quantifier fields, Jennifer warned. The Quantifier requests data on fuel volume in order to calculate carbon dioxide emission. Pollution reduction factors for specific technologies are determined by the EPA verification process, but a user can always change the reduction factors manually if desired.

The Quantifier can use cost information to determine dollars spent per tons of reduction gained. When entering cost information, capital cost means the cost of the technology while the total cost includes all costs needed for the project (for example, installation and administrative). Jennifer added that the website offers an HTML user guide with further instructions and information.

Jennifer ended her presentation with a disclaimer that the Quantifier cannot be used to evaluate SIP conformity, since it makes a number of assumptions when doing the calculations. Bill Jones clarified that the Quantifier is for use with grant proposals and reporting requirements, but should not be used in a regulatory context, like permitting.

NEXT MEETING AND LOCATION:
The next meeting will be held January 14, 2007 at DVRPC. Towards the end of the meeting some participants who came later said they represented Polytrade International, a company selling a fuel additive product that could reduce emissions by 30-60% and improve fuel economy. They were interested in partnering with PDD to find funding to help cover the verification process and to get a list of potential fleets they approach about their product. Urszula noted that California and Texas have funding available for emerging technologies.