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When it comes to protecting lives, Michael Cacciotti, recognized as a leading environmentalist in the area along with his civic duties in town, often thinks first about those playing in the outdoors near one of the Southland’s many busy freeways.
“I coach youth soccer, high school, college before that,” explained Cacciotti, a longtime South Pasadena city councilmember and current vice chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), noting that he zips along in his electric vehicle past dozens of soccer fields where “kids and families play sports, walk their dog every single day and are exposed to nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, diesel particulate matter affecting our neighborhoods, much of it from diesel driven trucks.”
On Tuesday, in a further push for clean air, a constant effort in his life, Cacciotti was in Ontario at NFI, which provides goods movement across the United States, as 50 zero-emission trucks from Daimier and Volvo in the state’s Joint Truck Scaling Initiative (JETSI) program were on display, along with a series of 38 new charging stations and a large maintenance facility.
As one of the event’s feature speakers, Cacciotti was there to congratulate NFI on their efforts to improve air quality by showcasing one of the earliest large-scale deployments of zero-emission trucks and supporting infrastructure, working in tandem with Southern California Edison and Electrify America, in the Southern California region.
“It’s incredible what they’ve done,” said Cacciotti, saying it’s “very similar to what we are doing in South Pasadena where the city is working on rolling out “the first all-electric police fleet in the United States, probably the world.”
He was among a large gathering as JETSI partners celebrated a milestone – NFI deploying the fleet of environmentally-minded trucks and putting its technology-driven electric charging depot on display.
With the elimination of diesel big rigs, Cacciotti says a huge savings will be made in fuel and maintenance costs by going electric. “For the communities in which the trucks travel, there’s the tremendous environmental and health benefits,” he continued. “We’re reducing climate forming greenhouse gases and harmful toxic emissions that come from these trucks impacting our health.”
Leaving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, hundreds of polluting trucks, insists the councilmember, move throughout communities, along the 710, 60, 10, 210 and other freeways, making their way “to Pavilions, Trader Joe’s and other places in our city, affecting the health of our citizens,” said Cacciotti. “When they can be electric like the ones at this facility, they are protecting millions of people, young and old who have compromised immune systems or another type of respiratory illness.”
Cacciotti insists, “When you look at the highest source of pollution in our basin, mobile sources are responsible for more than 80 percent, the biggest being ocean-going vessels, locomotives and heavy-duty trucks.”
What he calls “other great visionary partners,” NFI officials, representatives from the California Air Resources Board, and California Energy Commission, all playing a role in the project’s funding, joined Cacciotti at the NFI media event in delivering remarks. Fellow SCAQMD board member Larry McCallon, the chair of the agency’s Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee, said “I want to congratulate NFI on your efforts to improve air quality through investing in clean transportation by deploying these new Class 8 zero-emission trucks. NFI will help reduce more than 4,000 metric tons of GHG emissions annually and displace 2.8 million gallons of diesel fuel over the next five years.”
Which suits Caccotti just fine, thank you. “We will continue to work together to develop solutions that protect the environment and public health,” he said.
Photos by Bill Glazier
South Pasadena City Councilmember Michael Cacciotti was among a group of speakers in Ontario Tuesday congratulating NFI, which provides goods movement throughout the United States, for improving air quality through investing in clean transportation by deploying new Class 8 zero-emission trucks with supporting infrastructure.
