Port of Seattle Gets 100 Old Trucks Off the Roads

Since November 2009, 100 older diesel trucks servicing the Port of Seattle have been permanently removed from service.

"We are excited to have reached this milestone so quickly," said Jim Nolan, interim executive director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. "One hundred of the oldest, most-polluting trucks servicing the Port of Seattle have now been scrapped and replaced with trucks that emit 60 to 80 percent less air pollution, resulting in immediate air quality benefits for communities adjacent to the port."

The milestone has been partly due to the Seaport Truck Scrappage and Retrofits for Air in Puget Sound (ScRAPS) Program, administered by Cascade Sierra Solutions. The program provides owners of trucks with pre-1994 engines $5,000 to turn in their old vehicles for scrapping.

"The program has been very successful in the first few months of operation," said Kathy Boucher, CSS Seattle branch manager. "We have just processed the 100th credit and we are now averaging 2 to 4 applications each business day."

Replacement trucks obtained as part of the ScRAPS Program can qualify for a no-cost exhaust retrofit to further reduce their emissions. Funds for these retrofits are provided by the Washington State Department of Ecology, the Port of Seattle, and the Clean Air Agency. Later this year, additional funding from a U.S. Department of Transportation grant to the City of Tacoma will be added to the ScRAPS Program to expand its reach to container-hauling trucks serving the Port of Tacoma.

The program is designed to help the Port of Seattle meet the goals of the Northwest Ports Clean Air Strategy to remove all trucks with pre-1994 engines from port operations by the end of 2010 and to remove all trucks with pre-2007 engines by 2017. Scrapping these first 100 trucks and replacing them with more modern vehicles will prevent the emission of nearly 1.5 tons of fine particulates each year.