The County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County (LACSD) have strived to reduce air pollution emissions from landfill operations. The use of clean-fuel vehicles, and the re-powering of older vehicles with new technology, allows LACSD to perform state-of-the-art landfill operations in an environmentally-friendly manner.
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The scrapers were scheduled for complete rebuilding; thus, this project provided the optimum opportunity to perform the engine re-power. Complete rebuild of off-road equipment is a common practice when it reaches approximately 17,000 hours of operation or when it has been in service 10-12 years. The dual engine scraper lacated at Scholl Canyon landfill was a 16-year old unit with 19,789 hours of usage. The two scrapers located at Puente Hills landfill were a nine year old unit with 17,904 hours of usage and a 12 year old unit with 16,636 hours of use. The front engine of the Catepillar 657E scraper is a CAT 3412 550 horsepower engine, and the rear engine is the CAT 3408 400-horsepower engine. Both replacement engines are certified by CARB at 6.9 g/bhp-hr NOx. The original engines had a baseline emissions level of 11 g/bhp-hr NOx; thus, the emission reductions gained by replacing the original engines with new diesel engines is significant. The re-power of two of the three scrapers was completed in December 2003, and the third scraper was re-powered in February 2004. These scrapers have been operating on a daily basis since completion of the re-powers - one at the Scholl Canyon landfill in Glendale and two at the Puente Hills landfill. The wheel loader re-power was completed in March 2004 and delivered to the Puente Hills landfill that month. The Catepillar 966F wheel loader was re-powered with a Catepillar C10 on-road pilot ignition engine that uses liquefied natural gas and a small quanity of diesel fuel. Due to difficulties associated with obtaining a Fire Department permit to operate a 500-gallon portable fueling facility, the equipment remained unused until December 2005, when it was put into service.
This project focused on reducing emissions from landfill operations by re-powering three dual engine scrapers with new, CARB-certified diesel engines, and one wheel loader with a new CARB certified dual-fuel (diesel/LNG) engine.
This project has been successfully implemented. The three scrapers reduce approximately 13.4 tons of NOx annually. The wheel loader reduces approximately 2.1 tons of NOx annually. In addition to ozone precursor emission reductions, the four vehicle re-powers reduce toxic air contaminant emissions by approximately 1/2 ton annually.
All four vehicles continue to operate in landfill operations on a daily basis.