Port Everglades and EPA partner on air pollution

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Port Everglades released on June 1 a first-of-its-kind collaborative report titled EPA and Port Everglades Partnership: Emission Inventories and Reduction Strategies. The report outlines how the EPA and the port developed baseline and future year emission inventories for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM), and other pollutants that result from typical port operations. The report evaluates the potential emissions reduction benefits of deploying cleaner technologies and more efficient operational strategies. Port Everglades was the first to collaborate with the EPA on this kind of project (see the Green Marine Magazine story regarding this study). The report analyzes how hypothetical voluntary strategies such as reduced idling and the deployment of cleaner diesel and electric technologies can reduce pollution from existing and expanded port operations. For example, at Port Everglades, the potential of replacing older harbour craft engines with cleaner diesel engines could result in a 15-to-25% reduction in PM emissions in 2025, while replacing older cargo handling equipment with advanced technologies or alternative fuels could reduce NOx emissions by 21-to-76% in 2035. As part of this research, the EPA also developed a separate modeling analysis of potential strategies for reducing emissions in transportation corridors outside the Port. View the report.