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Sunday, July 22, 2007 Volusia County car fleet goes green By JAMES MILLER Kermit the Frog bemoaned the difficulties of being green in song.
George Baker can relate. Of course, Kermit was a Muppet singing about being made of green felt or something like it. Baker is a Texas native in charge of Volusia County’s 2,150-strong fleet of sedans, sport utility vehicles, fire trucks and more. He’s talking about reducing the fleet’s emission of air pollutants like particulate matter and carbon monoxide. “We need to be the pacesetters,” Baker said. “Government, with taxpayer dollars, we need to set the pace; we need to be environmentally friendly.” But being environmentally friendly with vehicle fleets can be complicated business for local governments as they weigh costs against benefits that aren’t always tangible. And reducing polluting emissions can be expensive. Last week, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist signed three orders meant to cut greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency. One requires that vehicles the state buys should be fuel-efficient and use ethanol and bio-diesel fuels when available. Crist’s orders don’t apply to local governments, though. In Florida, where air quality benefits from the state’s peninsular sea breezes and flatness, neither do U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates for alternative-fuel vehicles apply. But that doesn’t mean local governments with their thousands and thousands of vehicles should be — or are — doing nothing, activists and officials say. “We need to ensure that our children are breathing easy, just like we are today,” Baker said. Officials say the best way to cut emissions and save money is to reduce miles driven by identifying and following the best routes and doing things like cutting idling time. The county and Volusia County schools are doing both of those things, for example. But conserving fuel and dollars can cost money upfront even with those approaches, officials say. The schools use global positioning systems to improve route planning. The county is starting to do the same — but that’s expected to cost about half a million dollars before it’s done. The calculations get even trickier when it comes to another in-vogue approach — using alternative-fuel vehicles. Those vehicles don’t necessarily save money upfront. “It is more complicated than that,” Baker said. Some local governments have bought or are considering buying hybrid sedans and SUVs that combine gasoline or diesel engines with electric motors. The county has six of them, and Baker expects to buy more in the coming year. But they cost thousands of dollars more than comparable conventional vehicles, and depending on how many miles they’re driven, it takes years to recoup the investment. “I think we calculated to break even either a seven- or eight-year term,” said Warren Pike, public works director in Port Orange, which has five hybrids. But city officials are pleased with them and have even talked about going with fully electric cars, Pike said. “What drove it is the cost of fuel is getting ridiculous,” he said. “Yes, global concerns, but what really, really drove it is the cost of fuel.” Other local governments haven’t experimented with hybrids — and won’t, for the time being, because of budget tightening after the Legislature mandated a property-tax rollback. Flagler County simply isn’t budgeting any new vehicles next year, spokesman Carl Laundrie said. But even local governments who can buy face serious cost obstacles buying enough alternative-fuel vehicles to make a difference, said Patrick O’Connor, legislative counsel with the National Association of Fleet Administrators. “It’s one thing to say that’s what you want to do; it’s another to say you can afford it,” he said. The association is lobbying Congress to provide direct payroll tax credits to local governments to buy alternative-fuel vehicles, which include things like flex-fuel vehicles that can use gasoline or an ethanol-gasoline mixture. Volusia County has about 60 of those, but so far ethanol is hardly available in Florida. Local governments can make a difference regardless, said Danielle Fugere, West Coast regional program director for Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy organization. They can buy the most efficient conventional vehicles on the market and do things like cut down on trips. Just because someone is important doesn’t mean he or she has to drive an SUV, Fugere said. Ormond Beach environmentalist Eric West offered similar advice — officials and staffers shouldn’t drive large gas guzzlers when they don’t have to, for instance. But they shouldn’t forget new technologies like hybrids, either, he said. “Even if the cost is not borne out in terms of real economic sense; in terms of the pollutants they’re putting into the air, it’s still saving an awful lot,” West said. “And they’re setting a standard.” |
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