Cost of emissions compliance taxing

Taxpayers will pay upfront for the installation of soon-to-be-required advanced emissions systems for state diesel-fueled trucks and some municipal trucks.

But contractors warn that state jobs also will cost taxpayers more down the road owing to a lack of competition as companies that can't afford the upgrades simply won't bid on state jobs.

State Department of Environmental Conservation regulations will require in January that all trucks — government-owned or private — that are used on state contract jobs have improved emissions systems. Those systems are standard on trucks made beginning in 2007, but the regulations also apply to older trucks.

The upgrades could cost from $3,000 to $20,000 per truck.

"Is there enough money in a job to pay for that?" said Pamela J. Clement, co-owner of T.J. Clement Construction Co., Calcium. "Is now the time to try to put more people out of work?"

She said the construction company has 20 trucks, some of them the newest in the area, but they're 2006 models.

For the state, the problem will be limited competition or difficulty finding enough trucks to work on major projects, such as the connector highway between Interstate 81 and Fort Drum, she said.

"I'm not sure where they're going to find trucks 2007 and newer," Mrs. Clement said. "There are a lot of owner-operators who do the work and they tend to have older trucks."

The regulations do not apply to off-road construction trucks or snowplows that serve no other purpose, DEC said.

The agency originally included a cost estimate of $1,500 to $8,500 per vehicle for the upgrades.

"We've seen a larger range, lower costs and higher costs, as the parties are looking into compliance," DEC spokeswoman Maureen F. Wren said. "Each agency will assess the vehicles in its fleet."

Henderson is one town in the region that has a state contract to salt and plow roads. The town uses plows that also serve as dump trucks during summer, which means they have to comply with the new regulations.

Highway Superintendent Harold R. Nelson said the town is waiting to get some official information on the requirements, including the cost.

The department has one truck from 2007 and one from 2008, but the one that is definitely in compliance is now used as a backup for salting and that's not going to change, Mr. Nelson said.

Paying to retrofit the trucks would be difficult.

"When you're already spending $180,000 on a truck, bringing four or five current is very expensive," he said. "One truck, maybe; five trucks, probably not."

The state Department of Transportation Region 7 has 125 large dump trucks and 150 smaller trucks in its fleet.

Spokesman Michael R. Flick said about 25 percent of the fleet's vehicles meet the standards, so about 200 vehicles need some improvements. A portion of those have some emissions improvements, but aren't fully up to the new standards.

"We're trying to figure out what to do with the older ones now," he said.

New York Construction Materials Association Inc., Latham, a group of concrete and aggregate producers, filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County against the regulations.

"The DEC took so long to promulgate the regulations that we ended up with 18 months to comply," said David S. Hamling, president and chief executive officer of the association.

The Legislature, in passing the order for the regulations, gave DEC three years to produce and enforce them.

"We will try to have them declared null," Mr. Hamling said.

Some members of the association have more than 100 vehicles, so retrofits throughout the fleet would cost more than $2 million, he said. Across the association, that would cost tens of millions.

"That's just from a very small segment of trucks," he said. "Everyone's in favor of clean air, but we're asking them to allow us to continue in business while we come into compliance."

Thomas P. O'Connor, president of Taylor Concrete Products Inc., Watertown, said the emissions standards in trucks have improved a great deal.

"Over the last decade, there has been a significant change in emissions equipment standard for big trucks, which has raised the price $7,000 or $8,000," he said. "There's heavy pre-buying 2006 trucks and early '07s."

Large trucks already are more than $100,000 each, he said.

Taylor Concrete has one 2009 truck that it could send to state jobs, but it only occasionally does state contract work, Mr. O'Connor said.

"It's crazy because no one can afford to come into compliance in this environment," he said.

One of the largest trucking companies in the region, Ricelli Trucking, Syracuse, has a fleet with about 85 percent older than 2007.

"We're still deciding whether we would retrofit or update," said Richard Ricelli Sr., president of Ricelli Enterprises. "There's never a good time to add cost to any company."