Bentonville : Region’s air quality topic of 2-day meet
Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007
Business leaders and environmental regulators wrapped up two days of meetings Thursday in Bentonville, sharing stories of air pollution prevented and money saved.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has its own array of environmental initiatives, hosted the third meeting of the Blue Skyways Collaborative, which promotes efforts in 10 central states to improve air quality.
Launched just over a year ago, Blue Skyways partners say they have implemented $ 271 million in projects that keep 505, 000 tons a year in greenhouse gases out of the environment and save 125 million gallons of fuel.
The effort ultimately will affect everyone in the region, said Richard E. Greene, administrator of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 6 office in Dallas, which covers Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
“As air quality improves, people will notice a change in their daily lives even if they’re not asthmatic, even if they have not had a particular health problem,” he said.
Much of the effort to date has focused on retrofitting big trucks with diesel engines.
Wal-Mart has embarked on a four-year effort to equip its fleet of 7, 100 trucks with generators to run essential on-board equipment, rather than idling the trucks’ engines while drivers take mandatory breaks, said Tim Yatsko, the company’s senior vice president for transportation. The result, he said, is one gallon of fuel used overnight, rather than one gallon per hour.
“Obviously there’s a lot of savings on fuel, almost 10 million gallons to our fleet,” he said.
Other Blue Skyways initiatives have included retrofitting school buses to reduce emissions, particularly those in urban zones not meeting EPA air quality standards. One project last year involved 31 diesel school buses in the Marion School District and 19 more from the West Memphis School District.
The Blue Skyways Collaborative stretches from the Texas and Louisiana coastlines to the Minnesota border with Canada. It encompasses Region 7, based in Kansas, which covers Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas, and Minnesota from Region 5.
EPA takes the lead in organizing the group’s efforts, but Blue Skyways and similar coalitions around the nation do not stem from a federal mandate or law, said Carl E. Edlund, director of the planning and permitting division for EPA’s Region 6. Businesses often are wary when EPA approaches them about participating, said John Askew, Region 7 ’s administrator. “We’re known for enforcement. We’re not really known for collaborative efforts. This is changing that,” he said.
To contact this reporter: spainter@arkansasonline. com
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