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Port surpasses federal mandate on clean fuel
The S.C. State Ports Authority is making the move to cleaner-burning ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel three years ahead of a federal mandate.
Federal law requires the use of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel in all off-road equipment by 2010.
The Port of Charleston’s container terminals received their first deliveries of the low-sulfur fuel late last month.
Rubber-tired gantry cranes, the large stacking cranes in container yards, will be the first to switch to the new fuel.
Storage tanks that supply fuel to about 70 other pieces of on-terminal equipment, such as stacking cranes and yard trucks will be filled later.
The ports authority purchases almost 1 million gallons of diesel fuel annually.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has mandated all off-road equipment switch to ultra-low-sulfur diesel by July 1, 2010.
Traditional low-sulfur diesel meets a federal standard of 500 parts per million sulfur content. Ultra-low-sulfur fuel at ports authority facilities must meet a federal standard of 15 parts per million.
Until now, the ports authority was using low-sulfur diesel in all its equipment.
The particulate matter reduction for ultra-low-sulfur diesel has been estimated at 10%, said Byron Miller, the ports authority’s spokesman.
The move to ultra-low-sulfur fuel isn’t the only step the ports authority has taken to reduce air emissions in anticipation of the construction of a new terminal at the former Charleston Naval Base.
In March, the ports authority signed a memorandum of agreement with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to team up on efforts to cut port-related diesel emissions. In this agreement, the ports authority committed to evaluate the use of cleaner fuels at its facilities.
Other parts of the agreement include conducting an air emissions inventory of existing facilities, funding a particulate matter monitoring station to be operated by DHEC and including contractor guidelines in construction bid documents.
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