Updated:
5/29/2009 9:00:00 AM
E&MU: California Reefer Rule Sparks Retrofits
Law Covers In- and Out-of-State Trailers
By Joe Howard, Managing Editor, TT Magazines; and Susan L. Hodges, Contributing Writer
This story appears in the May/June 2009 issue of Equipment & Maintenance Update, a supplement to the May 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Truckers who pull refrigerated trailers into and around California have less than two months to prep for a rule that requires the small diesel engines that power older reefers to meet a state emission standard.
Hope that the California Air Resources Board’s rule would not actually take effect, concern about potential costs and in some cases a lack of awareness led to widespread indifference to the mid-July deadline. Procrastination has given way to a frenzied realization that time is running out.
“It has sort of become a fire drill,” David Kiefer, an engineer for refrigeration manufacturer Carrier Transicold, said. “If it cost $100 to comply, it wouldn’t be an issue, but you had fleets waiting to see if the [feds were] going to say no to CARB.”
Ultimately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided to issue the waiver the state needed. The only result was to force CARB to postpone its first compliance deadline by a little more than six months — to mid-July.
Now, considerable buzz surrounds the reefer rule — it was a hot topic at the Mid-America Trucking Show in March — and opinions differ on the best course of action, equipment manufacturers and industry participants said.
Effective July 17, all refrigeration units of model year 2001 and older running on California highways must meet particulate restrictions not unlike those on new-truck diesels. CARB has estimated as many as 75,000 reefer trailers are affected.
Fleets can comply in a variety of ways, from dedicating their better trailers to California runs to putting remanufactured engines in the reefers or retrofitting diesel particulate filters on current engines.
And more deadlines are coming in succession, based on younger model years. Compliance of model year 2002 is required by this coming Dec. 31.
“There is quite a bit of urgency,” said Evan Ypsilantis, vice president of sales at Rypos Inc., a manufacturer of a diesel particulate filter that can be fixed to older reefer engines and bring them into compliance.
Though there were rumblings of an appeal of the CARB rule, deadline aversion won’t be helpful.
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