The Port of Pittsburgh Commission is getting a $1.157 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to refit some towboat engines, in the latest EPA project aimed at cutting diesel exhaust emissions in the freight sector.
The federal agency said the money will go “to oversee extensive repowering of four marine towing vessels with new, more efficient diesel engines and generators that will reduce air pollution, improve air quality and lessen overall environmental impacts.”
The port commission and three towing companies will put up $1.97 million to match the grant, creating a fund totaling more than $3 million to put cleaner burning engines in the towboats.
Reresentatives from the three companies - - Campbell Transportation Company, Consol Energy and River Salvage – joined with officials from federal, state and county agencies plus environmental groups to announce the project.
“Putting clean diesel engines in these hard-working marine vessels will bring cleaner, healthier air for communities along the port’s 200 miles of navigable waterways,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin.
The port’s executive director, James McCarville, said “this grant and the actions of these companies will take the greenest, least polluting mode of surface transportation, and make it even greener.”
He said each tow of 15 barges hauls more than 1,000 truckloads of cargo, and “just by taking trucks off of the roads we serve industries that could not be located here without the waterways.”
Pittsburgh claims the nation’s second largest inland port, handling up to 40 million tons of cargo a year worth $6.6 billion and generating 45,000 jobs in its region.
Some other recent EPA aid in the freight sector ranged from helping convert locomotives in Iowa into unpowered traction assist “slugs,” to funding a range of ship and rail projects along the West Coast.
The federal agency said the money will go “to oversee extensive repowering of four marine towing vessels with new, more efficient diesel engines and generators that will reduce air pollution, improve air quality and lessen overall environmental impacts.”
The port commission and three towing companies will put up $1.97 million to match the grant, creating a fund totaling more than $3 million to put cleaner burning engines in the towboats.
Reresentatives from the three companies - - Campbell Transportation Company, Consol Energy and River Salvage – joined with officials from federal, state and county agencies plus environmental groups to announce the project.
“Putting clean diesel engines in these hard-working marine vessels will bring cleaner, healthier air for communities along the port’s 200 miles of navigable waterways,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin.
The port’s executive director, James McCarville, said “this grant and the actions of these companies will take the greenest, least polluting mode of surface transportation, and make it even greener.”
He said each tow of 15 barges hauls more than 1,000 truckloads of cargo, and “just by taking trucks off of the roads we serve industries that could not be located here without the waterways.”
Pittsburgh claims the nation’s second largest inland port, handling up to 40 million tons of cargo a year worth $6.6 billion and generating 45,000 jobs in its region.
Some other recent EPA aid in the freight sector ranged from helping convert locomotives in Iowa into unpowered traction assist “slugs,” to funding a range of ship and rail projects along the West Coast.