The California Air Resources Board recently collected $223,295 in fines, settling 37 cases of air quality violations, mostly by trucks and buses for failure to properly conduct and pass self-inspections aimed at measuring vehicle smoke emissions to ensure state requirements are met.
The five companies paying the highest amounts were:
• County of Imperial, Department of Public Works, fined $27,000 for failure to properly self-inspect its diesel trucks to assure the vehicles met state smoke emissions standards;
• Marquez Brothers International Inc., fined $24,000 for failure to comply with diesel fleet self-inspection requirements and for violations of the Transport Refrigeration Unit (TRU) regulation;
• Brotherhood Trucking Inc., fined $17,617.50 for failing to properly self-inspect its diesel fleets and dispatching drayage trucks that either did not meet emissions standards or were not entered into the Drayage Truck Registry;
• West Coast Refrigerated Trucking Inc., fined $15,750 for failing to properly inspect its diesel fleet and for not upgrading all its TRU engines; and
• Peninsula Coast Joint Powers Board, fined $15,500 for failing to properly self-inspect its diesel fleet and for not meeting emissions requirements for NOx and PM.
“Businesses play a vital role in environmental protection,” says Paul Jacobs, chief of CARB’s Mobile Source Enforcement Branch. “We work hard to establish and maintain good relationships so that we can educate business owners and keep them updated. However, if errors are made and air quality suffers as a result, we are required to take action.”
