California Dump Truck Owners Association

Harbor drayage companies calling at the Port of Oakland experienced sporadic delays Tuesday as the port initiated its ban on old trucks.

The problems stemmed from truckers filing inaccurate vehicle identification numbers with the terminals or drivers showing up without the required radio frequency identification tag on their vehicles, said Bruce Wargo, who is head of the Oakland Marine Terminal Operators Association.

Wargo's numbers indicate that 92 percent of the trucks with RFID tags accessed the marine terminals without a problem.

Oakland's clean-truck program bans all pre-1994 trucks. Vehicles of model years 1994 to 2003 are allowed entry to the terminals if the trucks have been retrofitted with an approved diesel particulate trap.

Photo courtesy Port of Oakland

The truck ban was originally scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, but hundreds of truckers who had applied for financial assistance to retrofit their vehicles received nothing because the California Air Resources Board ran out of subsidy money.

CARB then came up with $11 million in additional funding, and the port agreed to extend the retrofit requirement until Jan. 19. Many truckers have not had time to perform the retrofit, but the port will allow them to call at the terminals if they produce proof that a retrofit is on order.

Lisa Fasano, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said 764 truckers since Jan. 1 have met the criteria for retrofitting their vehicles or for replacing older trucks with new ones.

She noted that 1,600 compliant trucks were operating in Oakland by Jan. 1, so there will be at least 2,364 new or retrofitted vehicles operating at the port when the latest round of retrofits is completed.

The start-up problems in Oakland on Tuesday were similar to the delays experienced in Los Angeles-Long Beach when those ports initiated their clean-truck programs, Wargo said. Wargo is also president of PierPass Inc. in Southern California.

Based on the Southern California experience, Wargo said trucking operations in Oakland should improve on Wednesday.

Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .