Diesel emissions hurt Tacoma’s air quality. EPA issues grants to address it
Tacoma is getting grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for improving air quality and reducing diesel emissions.
The EPA announced this month that it awarded the city of Tacoma $542,684 to replace four diesel-powered garbage collection trucks with four compressed natural gas-powered trucks for residential and commercial use.
The EPA also supplied $1 million to fund the installation of shore power connection systems at the Port of Tacoma.
Shore power allows ships to hook up to electricity at berth without running their engines, reducing fuel usage and air pollution.
The funding was awarded to the Northwest Seaport Alliance for the Husky Terminal Shore Power Project as a strategy to reduce air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
“This project maximizes health benefits by reducing diesel emissions generated in the movement of goods in Tacoma’s commercial and port district, an area that is disproportionately impacted by emissions from diesel fleets,” according to the EPA’s West Coast Collaborative, a public-private partnership that administered the grants.
Pierce County is on the EPA’s 2018 priority project list for places with the highest emissions from diesel engines. The Puget Sound region also ranked in the top 5 percent of the nation for potential cancer risk from air toxins in the EPA’s 2011 National Air Toxics Assessment, with diesel emissions identified as the predominant source of cancer risk.
Maritime activities account for 23 percent of the region’s diesel exhaust, according to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, with ocean-going vessels and trucks as the top producers.
A total of $5.6 million in grants was distributed in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska as part of the EPA’s Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) grant program.
