Nov. 3--VICTORVILLE

--The black smoke splurting out of diesel engines is marked for a clean-up -- costly new state regulations that business owners say will be passed on.

The California Air Resources Board is requiring that diesel engines be retrofitted with new emission control systems beginning in early 2010. All diesel trucks, buses, trailers and transport refrigeration units, including those based out of state, are required to take steps to reduce air pollution by installing cleaner burning equipment or replace the vehicles with new units.

Ro n Wa l ke r, m a i n t e -- nance supervisor with Cooley Construction in Hesperia, said his company has about 65 pieces of equipment and it will cost approximately $20,000 each to retrofit them.

"We'll spend about $1.3 million to come into compliance," he said.

Walker said he understand's the goal, but he questioned the wisdom of enforcing it now in such a sluggish economy. Walker said it could cause a lot of smaller companies to go out of business.

"It is going to cause us to accelerate the turnover of our older equipment," Walker said. "The older equipment that we have to sell will need to be taken out of state to sell them and that will also be a little more costly."

Tony Santiago, general manager of Gold Star Equipment Rentals in Apple Valley, summed up the new regulations in one word: complicated.

"It depends on the age of the equipment, how many pieces you have and the date you need to be in compliance," Santiago said. "Some of the new equipment you buy today may not be in compliance in two years -- you aren't really sure. You're not going to buy something new and then have to retrofit it in two years because it is out of compliance."

Santiago estimated that some of the retrofits of his equipment will cost from $10,000 to $15,000. But he said that price should come down as more retrofit systems are available.

L i ke C o o l ey Construction, Gold Star will have to get rid of older equipment sooner than expected.

"If you have a piece of equipment that is worth $10,000 it doesn't make a lot of sense to retrofit it at a cost of $10,000," Santiago said. "What we can do is just go sell it at auction out of state somewhere."

CARB Spokesperson Dimitri Stanich said $1 billion has been set aside to help truckers and owners offset the cost of the changes. However the funding is limited and highly competitive, and Stanich urges diesel owners to apply early.

Stanich says the goal is to have an 80 percent reduction of toxic airborne contaminates from diesel particulate matter by 2020. He said the cost for owners to retrofit or purchase newer, cleanerburning equipment will be far less than if the current standard continues to pollute the air and significantly increases health care costs due to cancer, heart disease and other illnesses caused by the toxic diesel exhaust. For more information about the new CARB regulations and to apply for funding visit arb.ca.gov.

Patrick Thatcher may be reached at 951-6227 or at pthatcher@ VVDailyPress.com.

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Copyright (c) 2009, Daily Press, Victorville, Calif.

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