Burns, Dole on Hand for Announcement of Cleaner, Retrofitted Mountain Line Buses
By Matthew Frank
It's been a darn good week for Mountain Line. Tuesday, with Senator Max Baucus on hand, Missoula's bus service rolled out five brand-new biodiesel buses. On Wednesday, Montana's other senator, Conrad Burns, spoke at a conference announcing that Caterpillar, Inc. will be retrofitting the 14 other diesel buses in Mountain Line's fleet, a technology that could reduce the amount of pollutants emitted from Mountain Line tailpipes by 13.5 tons every year.
"Yesterday was about alternative fuels," Senator Burns said. "Today we're cleaning up the air."
The diesel retrofit technology, championed by the Maryland-based nonprofit Diesel Technology Forum which sponsored Wednesday's event, is a combination catalytic converter/muffler that oxidizes pollutants. The technology is said to be able to reduce particulate matter by 20 to 50 percent, hydrocarbons by 60 to 90 percent, and carbon monoxide by more than 90 percent.
Burns, who helped secure money for the project (he called it "one of those pork barrel things") said that programs like this one between the public and private sectors, along with research and development and the resulting technology, "gets us to where we want to be: in the business of protecting our environment and the air we breathe."
Why Missoula? Well, Missoula's air quality needs to be improved (and not just during fire season). Ben Schmidt, air quality specialist with the Missoula City-County Health Department, presented data Wednesday showing that Missoula may exceed the new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter proposed by the EPA. With diesel engines accounting for over 22 percent of that pollution in Missoula, diesel retrofit technology may be a crucial tool for Missoula to reach attainment.
Mountain Line's General Manager Steve Earle said, "Public transportation is the testing ground for this type of technology." If it doesn't work here, he said, it likely won't work in other applications either. Earle added that even if the retrofits don't get more people on Mountain Line's buses, what they will do is help garner more support from the general public, and that's what's needed to obtain more funding. Caterpillar's Ken Katch said the retrofitting should be completed by the end of the year.
The context for all of this is the EPA's Highway Diesel Rule which takes effect January 1, 2007. Under the rule, new trucks and buses will be required to reduce emissions by 90 percent compared to 1988 levels, and ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) needs to be used for the new pollution control technologies to be effective. By October of this year, ULSD will be made available nationwide. But the retrofitting technology can be applied to pre-2007 trucks and buses, too, bringing them up to snuff.
North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole, the former Transportation Secretary, introduced Senator Burns Wednesday. She said Burns is "laser-focused on delivering for his state."
During Burns's keynote address he noted that two products used in the retrofitting technology, palladium and talc, are mined right here in Montana. "We're shooting with real bullets...Clean air, using technology to do it. That's the approach."
Print This
