BP Whiting Refinery, South Shore Clean Cities and the Indiana Chapter of the Sierra Club have announced the recipients of the Cleaner Air through Diesel Emission Reduction (CADER) grant program.
The BP-CADER investment is expected to result in approximately $1.2 million in diesel emission reduction projects through additional leveraged funding from other grant programs including Indiana Department of Environmental Management DieselWise and Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission Green Fleets programs.
Emission reductions in criteria pollutants are estimated at 10,500 pounds per year and greater than 100,000 pounds over the lifetime of the projects.
Eligible groups to receive the funding included Lake County, Ind., municipalities, schools and not‐for-profit hospitals.
Awardees and BP-CADER contributions toward projects were:
- Franciscan Alliance - Hammond, Dyer and Crown Point. $52,500 for seven Medidock kiosks, which reduce emissions from ambulances.
- Methodist Hospitals - Northlake in Gary and Southlake in Merrillville. $30,000 for four Medidock kiosks.
- Community Healthcare System - St. Mary Medical Center, Hobart. $15,000 for two Medidock kiosks.
- Community Healthcare System - Community Hospital, Munster and St. Catherine, East Chicago. $35,500 for four Medidock kiosks.
- School City of East Chicago - $67,293 for Telematics technology on thirty-one buses and partial funding to replace two older diesel buses with propane-fueled buses.
- School City of Hammond - $56,558 for bus heaters to reduce idling in up to sixty-four school buses.
- Lake County Sheriff's Department - $24,637 for repowering old patrol/search and rescue boat engines with cleaner diesel engines.
- City of Gary - $8,975 for diesel oxidation catalysts on six older trucks.
- City of Hobart - $114,263 to replace an older refuse truck with a new CNG-fueled refuse truck.
- City of Whiting - $42,000 to replace an older refuse truck with a new clean diesel refuse truck.
Carl Lisek, executive director for South Shore Clean Cities, said the awards are all about teamwork.
"This really is One Region, One Vision," said Lisek, who also is vice president of Legacy Environmental Services, Inc. at the Purdue Technology Center in Crown Point.
The BP-CADER program is the result of an agreement between BP, Sierra Club, Save the Dunes, Natural Resources Defense Council, Hoosier Environmental Council, Environmental Law and Policy Center, Environmental Integrity Project and two private citizens.
Steve Francis, state chair of the Sierra Club for the Indiana Chapter, said the Sierra Club often is portrayed as being at odds and in opposition with industry, but that is not always the case.
"These positive types of programs show that we can work together, resulting in monies being made available for important emissions reduction projects like these," he said.
Deb Backhus, senior environmental scientist/engineer at South Shore Clean Cities and program manager for the BP-CADER program, said the program emphasizes projects expected to have the greatest positive public health benefits for sensitive populations, maximizes the impact of the BP program by designing the RFP process to leverage other funding sources, and maximizes the quality of proposals and expected results by providing education and outreach on diesel emission reduction options to applicants.
Tom Keilman, director of government and public affairs for BP, said the award recipients should be proud of the projects they submitted.
"Through the efforts of the environmental groups and South Shore Clean Cities, today's event culminated in some really innovative and out of the box thinking in terms of how we can all work together to reduce our emissions locally," he said.
For more information about the BP CADER program or South Shore Clean Cities contact Deb Backhus at (219) 644-3693 or email dbackhus@southshorecleancities.org.