California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

With CARB regulatory reporting and compliance dates fast approaching, many are for the first time actually taking this all seriously. Yes, the rules are almost here, and everyone is trying to understand what it will take to remain in business.

Within the last 2 months, work has suddenly picked up, and in some areas there are not enough trucks to be found. After several years of little or no work, this latest surge has given those that are left a slight glimmer of hope that perhaps they do have a future. Now it’s time to start raising rates to afford Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs), retrofitting, or buying newer equipment. Most have chosen the retrofit option because the cost of a “new” truck at $125-$135,000 each is no longer an option. Consequently, I don’t believe for a minute that this sudden demand for trucks will continue very long because our state is in too much trouble financially. Few seem to really understand this, but I guess we’ll take anything we can get at this point.

So, as CARB continues to plow ahead with its regulations based on all the junk science, fabricated emissions inventory, and 350 annual premature deaths, its credibility is less than zero and their lack of professionalism is now showing up just about everywhere.

Interestingly, on just about the same day that Gov. Brown vetoed some reasonable legislation to reign in at least some equipment testing and certification scheduling for CARB, the agency decides its time to stop the sale of some of the equipment (DPFs) they have just taken a few years to certify. Not only has CARB stopped the sale of these devices, but they are demanding a recall and a fix.

Apparently, there is a glitch in their well thought-out emissions plan. In a letter to Cleaire Advanced Emission Systems dated September 17, 2011, CARB cited the reason for its decisions as “catastrophic failure.” See CDTOA website for copy of letter.

When I hear the word catastrophic, I would say that it is a word more commonly used to describe things like the collapse of the World Trade Center or the sinking of the Titanic—now those things were catastrophic!

Why use this word? What incidents are they referring to that could possibly be that bad?

I also had a pretty good clue that something dangerous was happening when two sentences in the letter said to immediately “recall” and ‘”suspend” from service all LongMile filters installed on exhaust gas recirculation-equipped (EGR-equipped) Cummins ISX engines.

Those words really got my attention as I thought of other DPF “catastrophic failures” I have seen or heard about over the last few years. I have heard many stories about these devices overheating and causing fires or shutting down trucks in the middle of a haul. From buses to trucks to even stationary sources like generators, I have heard and read story after scary story.

Again, the CARB letter is posted on our website, so please review it, especially if you have a Cummins ISX engine. It explains the immediate recall and removal from service of all LongMile filters installed on buses and all AllMetal filters installed on off-road equipment.

Frankly, the reference to buses was what really jumped out at me. It would not be good publicity to have a busload of passengers, and worse yet, kids (whom CARB likes to tell us who these regulations are really for), go up in flames, all in the name of “cleaning the air.”

There was a report a few years ago about a bus that caught fire on the Bay Bridge, it was supposedly due to a DPF, and I did talk with the bus company. However, the event did not get much publicity because, luckily, there were no passengers on board at the time. There was also an incident, a fire, at the Kirkwood Ski Resort in January of 2010, also rumored to be the result of a DPF on a stationary diesel-powered generator. Strangely though, as I tried to follow up in more detail on these reports, I learned most people are afraid to say anything publicly about CARB or the equipment, fearing certain ramifications and reprisals. After all, it is easy to blame the owners of these devices for their failures due to poor maintenance, deservedly or not.

I now believe that most owners in these situations prefer to suffer in silence rather than open themselves up to potential harassment. The reason why everyone fears CARB is that they report to no one but maybe the governor, and we all know that green is the color of his blood. They operate in a vacuum of impunity.

As we dug around about this recall, it finally all came together. There was an event recently, and boy, was it an event. Thanks to an observant member, I was directed to the “KillCARB” website, and there was the link to a newspaper story published by The Golden State Sentinel in the state of Washington. And now I understand what “catastrophic” really means.

What is now known as the Monastery Complex Fire in Goldendale, Washington evidently started Sept. 7 and burned for 10 days. Over 3,600 acres, 29 homes, and 79 outbuildings burned. The cause was reportedly a faulty DPF installed on a California-based truck hauling freight.
In a related article by Land Line Magazine, CARB said Cleaire alerted it on September 9 that a LongMile DPF unit “had an uncontrolled regeneration and melted through the outer casing of the filter.” It then took a week and a half for CARB to determine it was time to recall them.

I am sickened for those who lost their homes and property and yet angered that this story did not make every major news outlet in the country. Will someone please give me a figure on the amount of particulate matter, NOx, and CO2 that filled the atmosphere from this fire? This entire PM farce has been allowed to proceed, despite the fraud and junk science propagated at CARB. They are, of course, saving lives in California due to all the unhealthy air from diesel engines, which they claim causes premature deaths—350 of them a year, out of the 37.3 million of us here.

It was always ironic to me that our older trucks and construction equipment could be sold to other states, as long as they left California and took the PM and NOx emissions with them. Now it looks like these new DPF-fitted trucks and off-road equipment will travel to other states, with the latest and greatest technology for California. But word will get out, and then watch out; fearful locals will likely prefer the PM and other things to the fire potential.

Here is another irony. I was told by friends who live in boarding states that transfer stations and yards are being constructed at our borders, so that older, out-of-state trucks that will not be allowed to operate here can drop their loads at these locations to be picked up and delivered by California-compliant vehicles. How long before other states begin to realize our California trucks are a clear and present “fire” danger and forbid us to cross their borders? Just a little food for thought!

As I like to stay with doo-wop themes in my story titles, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” seemed appropriate. Interestingly, the song was a versatile hit written and released in 1933 during (ironically) the Great Depression. Possibly the most famous version, which was recorded in 1958 by the group “The Platters,” became a number-one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100; it also reached number three on the R&B charts in 1959.

In Late Breaking News!
As you know, last month I devoted my article to another government scam called bridge tolls. As if it’s not bad enough that we already pay some of the highest bridge tolls in the U.S. in the Bay Area, now the bridge-tolling commission has raised the tolls not by a dollar or two, but by 222%. And what do you think the majority of the Metro Transportation Commissioners want to do with all this new cash? Yes, they want to become real estate developers and speculators and buy buildings and then renovate them in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. No plans about bigger, better bridges yet!

These people have forgotten that they are supposed to work for us, the toll and taxpayers. Something is very wrong here, and it needs to be investigated and stopped. The commissioners who voted to waste this money need to be fired and sent to jail where they likely belong. I suggest that you all read the story “MTC Approves Move to New SF Building” above this article. If you cross the bridge even with a Chevy Volt, you should be outraged at all of this.

And while the MTC commissioners in the Bay continue to subvert the public meeting and disclosure process and act as if tolls were their own “little” pot of money from which to self-deal, the AAA of New York and New Jersey are saying “no” to this very same type of graft and government waste. AAA is suing the port authorities there to stop all toll increases until they publically disclose the capital “plan” that is supposed to justify the need for the toll increases.

The question I have is, will the AAA here do the same for us? If not, why not?

The bottom line is that someone should, maybe even us.