Save Carl Moyer Fund

Please restore the $50 million or at least maintain the $20 million in proposed funding for the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Standards Attainment Program in the 2001-2002 state budget. The program is essential to improving air quality in California. It also funds the Emissions Reduction Credit bank that offsets emissions from new peaking power plant facilities that will be needed to meet the state’s immediate electric energy requirements.

The successful Moyer grant program has funded the removal of hundreds of the dirtiest diesel engines in the state from operation and replaced them with newer, cleaner technology in a cost-effective way. As a result, 14 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and 800 pounds of particulate matter per day will be removed from California’s air.

During the past three years, the Carl Moyer Program has helped improve air quality in California by providing grants for the purchase of low emission, heavy-duty engines for vehicles, equipment, vessels and locomotives. The program helps the environment and the economy by offering businesses and industry the incentive to switch to cleaner diesel engines.

Among the worst polluters, unregulated marine diesel engines were replaced or converted in large numbers in advance of new regulations as a direct result of the Moyer program. During the first two years of the program, 95 marine diesel engines were retrofitted to "cleaner diesel," reducing 386 tons of NOx per year at a cost of $4,291 per ton (below the program’s average of $5,00 per ton of NOx removed). This year, another 24 marine vessels in the San Francisco Bay Area alone are expected to switch to cleaner engines. This momentum will be lost if the Moyer program is not funded next year.

Bluewater Network, a San Francisco-based environmental organization and the Clean Ferry Coalition of allied groups strongly supports the Carl Moyer program and urges the Budget Conference Committee to make the full funding of this program a priority. Thank you for your interest and consideration.

Teri Shore

Campaign Director

Atlanta Likes It

Dear Editor:

I had the pleasure of returning to the Bay Area in May for a conference. In this time period. it coincided with the PortFest in Oakland as well as affording me the opportunity to "ferry-commute" between San Francisco and Oakland.

Being in the transportation/logistics consulting field, it was a pleasure to see such strong interest in Port of Oakland activities by the crowds. So often, transportation activities are "hidden" from the public eye. Exhibits and tours offer a rare opportunity to see what a global economy we are and how goods are moved from manufacturer to distributor to consumer. Oakland and San Francisco both have a rich history encompassing railroad and water transportation.

It was a pleasure to visit the Bay Area again as well as read Bay Crossings enroute between the cities.

Charles B. Jones, Jr.

Atlanta

Maddeningly Inscrutable

I am both a regular reader of Bay Crossings and a regular user of the San Francisco Ferry Terminal (Pier 1/2). I was therefore drawn to your June 2001 headline: ‘SSF Terminal Readied For September Opening, Oakland-Alameda Riders First to Shift to Splendid New Facility July 2’. Unfortunately, the ensuing article failed to follow up on either of these headline leads, and instead gave us more than we daily riders need to know about upcoming signs and promenades. So, what is the real story behind the Terminal opening? Given that we can see through the Ferry Building at this point, and that the new ferry gates currently consist of doorways and some gray pilings, will there really be a cutover to them beginning on July 2?

And re: ‘axonometric’ and Scrabble: it’s hard enough playing eight letter words; eleven letter words come along once in a lifetime.

Sincerely,

Brian Parsons

Alameda

Kudos

Thanks for another great issue of BAY CROSSINGS. The estuary is an endlessly facinating subject which we are all dependent on for commerce, transportation and just plain pleasure. We’ll miss Bill Coolidge whose prose always seemed to take journalism to a new level.

Ann Richter

I enjoyed the Teri Shore’s Shark First article. Keep up the good work!

Maria Brown

Executive Director

Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association

I just discovered your fine newspaper during a visit to Tiburon and found it to be extremely well edited and presented, as well as of great interest.

I am sending copies to some overseas friends who will visit here this summer, as it will be very useful in planning their Bay Area activities.

Ward Williams

Santa Rosa

Editors note: Flattery will get you everywhere.