Carl Moyer News

The San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA) and Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District) announced that WETA’s Gemini Class Clean Air Conversion Project has been completed, resulting in a substantial decrease in air pollution emissions from four San Francisco Bay Ferry vessels serving Oakland, Alameda and Richmond.In September 2021, WETA's Board of Directors approved a $5.5 million project to upgrade the engines and reduce emissions on the agency’s four Gemini-class vessels.

Americans became aware of our nation’s supply chain problem when they witnessed a hundred cargo ships anchored off the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, stymied from moving cargo to store shelves throughout the United States. Such circumstances could become all too common, especially as recently adopted engine emission regulations force maritime companies out of the country’s most impacted ports, or limit their ability to expand operations as America’s demand for imports and…

Oakland’s largest marine terminal operator plans to clear the air using hybrid cargo-handling technology. SSA Terminals said today it will retrofit 13 diesel-powered cranes with diesel-electric hybrid engines. The upgrade is estimated to eliminate more than 45 tons of exhaust emissions annually at the Port of Oakland. The projected cost to upgrade the cargo-handlers, known as Rubber Tired Gantry Cranes, is more than $6 million. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District this month approved a $5.1 million Community Health Protection Grant Program / Carl Moyer Program allocation for the project. The cranes will continue to operate at SSA’s Oakland International Container Terminal in the Port.

California Commercial Marine Operators Take Advantage of Grant Money to Repower with Eco-Friendly Engines. Capt. Joe Nazar recently repowered his whale watching excursion vessel in San Francisco with twin Volvo Penta Tier 3 diesels, and he couldn’t be happier with the results. Since the new engines were installed, he is seeing dramatic improvements in fuel efficiency, lower emissions, reduced noise levels and better performance. He has another good reason to be happy. A large percentage of the cost of repowering the boat came from a State of California grant. Nazar’s 64-ft. catamaran, Kitty Kat, was retrofitted with a pair of Volvo Penta D11 625 hp Tier 3 engines in April, replacing the previous 12-liter Tier 2 engines.

When it came time to replace the old engines in his whale-watching vessel, Capt. Joe Nazar chose Volvo Penta and has enjoyed the benefits of improved fuel efficiency, lower emissions, reduced noise levels and better performance ever since. Nazar’s 64-ft. catamaran, Kitty Kat, was retrofitted with a pair of Volvo Penta D11 625 diesel engines in April, replacing the existing 12-liter Tier 2 engines. The installation was performed at Bay Marine Boatworks in collaboration with Helmut’s Marine Service, an authorized Volvo Penta Power Center in San Francisco.

The (California) Air Resources Board is reminding and encouraging small business owners of off-road diesel vehicles, portable diesel equipment, or diesel marine vessels and engines to take advantage of this loan assistance opportunity. The loan must be completed and executed by August 31, 2012. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act award provided $5 million to the loan assistance program to reduce harmful diesel emissions by helping owners upgrade or replace their older vehicles, equipment, or engines. This joint program between the ARB and the California Pollution Control Financing Authority (CPCFA) provides competitive-rate loan opportunities in the current tight credit market to small businesses.

Global shipping leader APL and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced a landmark $11m project to cut vessel emissions and improve this city's air quality starting in 2010. Armed with $4.8m in air quality grants, the world's fifth-largest container carrier said it will retrofit its terminal and vessels to begin cold-ironing next December at the Port of Oakland. Cold-ironing is industry jargon for turning off a ship's 2,000 horsepower diesel generators at berth and connecting instead to electrical sources ashore. This enables vessels to maintain power in port while eliminating exhaust emissions. Cold-ironing will cut more than 50…

With a diverse fleet of 18 tugs, eight water taxis and 20 barges; 's Westar Marine Services is one of 's premier construction support companies. Their tug fleet will be 50% Cummins-powered when their good-looking boat Taurus goes back in service. While the fleet includes a range of Cummins engines from 14 to 38 liter models, the current repower will install a pair of Tier 2 compliant Cummins QSK19M engines for a total of 1320 hp at 1,800 rpm.The Taurus is 75 x 24-ft. model bow tug that is kept busy on a variety of jobs around and offshore the west coast. Not only will the repower extend the service life of the vessel it will significantly reduce emissions.

Working out of San Diego's Fisherman's Landing Marina, J.J. Gerritsen recently repowered his 65 x 22-ft. aluminum charter fishing boat dubbed Apollo. For Gerritsen sport fishing is a serious business dependent on the unpredictability of fish and weather. Given those two great unknowns, he has learned you can't leave anything else to chance. In the heavily populated southern California market, Gerritsen is also aware of the crucial relation between a healthy environment and success in the hospitality industry. "We were running a pair of the smoke belching old two-cycle engines," he says, "They were the standard in our industry. We understood them and had reliable mechanics and spares available. We can't afford any downtime in our business.

When the State of California, long a leader in reducing air-pollution, announced the Carl Moyer Program to reduce NOx emissions, towboat owner Aaron Lind and his family decided to get on board. The program is supported by a one-time appropriation of $50 million dollars for the 2000/2001 fiscal year. A significant portion of this amount was allotted for Carl Moyer Program incentive grants, as a means to reduce emissions from heavy-duty engines. These grants cover the incremental cost of cleaner on-road, off-road, marine, locomotive and stationary agricultural pump engines, as well as forklifts and airport ground support equipment. Beginning in summer 1999, grants became available through participating air pollution control and air quality management districts grants.

Working out of San Diego's Fisherman's Landing Marina, J.J. Gerritsen recently repowered his 65 by 22-ft. aluminum charter fishing boat, Apollo. For Gerritsen, sport fishing is a serious business dependent on the unpredictability of fish and weather. Given those two great unknowns, he has learned you can't leave anything else to chance. In the heavily populated southern California market, Gerritsen is also aware of the crucial relation between a healthy environment and success in the hospitality industry. "We were running a pair of the smoke-belching, old, two-cycle engines," he says, "They were the standard in our industry. We understood them and had reliable mechanics and spares available. We can't afford any downtime in our business.

At an event in Eugene recently, Michael O. Leavitt, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency helped kick-off the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority’s announcement of $1.475 million in diesel emission reductions investments for Oregon. The EPA is contributing $600,000 to these efforts. The projects will fund efforts to reduce emissions from idling trucks up and down Oregon’s I-5 corridor, retrofit school buses throughout the state, and improve accessibility and affordability of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. truck-idling reduction to school bus retrofits infrastructure to purchase, install and maintain small auxiliary engines that use up to 90 percent less diesel and emit 75 percent less air pollution than idling trucks.

On his day off Red and White Port Engineer Mike Epstein likes to take his nearly three-year-old son Mark down to the Bay and onboard the tour boats that he maintains. On a recent May morning he took a little extra time with his boy to show me around the refurbished and repowered 90x34-foot Royal Prince moored to the company dock at Pier 43 1/2 on the Embarcadero. The deep personal commitment to a greener environment is common in amidst the beauty of the San Francisco Bay Area, but Mike expresses it in a particularly intense fashion when he speaks about the Cummins QSK19 Tier 2 engines that they have recently installed in this practical craft. Asked what thinking went in to the engine selection, he replied, ?Not much thought was needed.

Brodie’s company, which has a transportation concession for the Channel Islands National Park, currently operates four single-hull 49-passenger boats. The new 149-passenger 65- x 24-ft. Cummins-powered catamaran Islander, delivered in mid March, will replace two of the smaller vessels. The new vessel features a range of environmentally friendly features such as high boxes around the fuel filler fittings to catch overspill. It also has non-toxic high polish bottom paint. Aluminum boat builder All American Marine, of Bellingham, Wash., has a partnership with Auckland, New Zealand’s naval architect Nic de Waal for the exclusive building rights to his unique Teknicraft catamaran designs on the U.S. west coast.

Considering the over abundance of conferences and exhibitions that grace the marine industry’s business calendar, I am pleased to report on the activities of the Ship Operations Cooperative Program (SOCP), which most recently met on the scenic campus of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. SOCP — which is a business/government partnership — provides a fresh dialogue among industry players with discussions focused on real-world issues and solutions. June’s meeting featured a number of topics, from alternative fuel technologies to a ferry operator panel, which discussed regulation, training, safety and technology. A more extensive account of the meeting will be found in MR/EN’s August edition, U.S. Report.

Fireworks exploded over the Bay Bridge and thousands of people crowding the waterfront near the new ballpark gasped in admiration. Some of the best seats for the spectacle are along the north side of Pier 50, home of Westar Marine Services where owner's and employees share a barbecue in honor of the annual display sponsored by a local radio station. But the folks at Westar are more than passive observers, the tugs that are managing the fireworks barges are contracted from Westar. This annual fireworks event sums up Westar Marine Services' role on San Francisco Bay. They are the company that takes on all of the niche jobs that others with their large investments in big horsepower and Z-drives can't afford to be doing.