BP nailed with record air fine

NY governor unveils
cap-and-trade plan

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has unveiled draft regulations to create the first carbon cap-and-trade system in the nation under a multistate plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Regional Greenhouse
Gas Initiative is an agreement

See At Deadline, Page 21

By Bruce Geiselman

BP PLC and several of its subsidiaries have agreed to pay more than $370 million in fines and restitution relating to three criminal matters involving environmental crimes and fraud.

As part of the agreement, BP will pay the largest fine ever imposed against a single entity for violating

the Clean Air Act, $50 million.

The U.S. Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency and numerous other federal and state agencies held a news conference Oct. 25 to unveil the charges and plea agreements.

First, the Justice Department will file a plea agree-

See Fine, Page 21

Big Brown moves

toward green

IN THIS ISSUE
SOLID WASTE

Publicly traded Waste Industries USA Inc. is considering going private. Page 6

Peak demand
Delivery giant UPS to deploy
hundreds of alt-fuel trucks
By Jim Johnson
HAZARDOUS WASTE

Office Depot launches an electronics recycling program at all of its North American retail locations. Page 5

Sen. Hillary Clinton and several other lawmakers pressure the EPA to expedite the cleanup of Superfund sites. Page 11

Robert Hall can’t predict exactly how many new alternative fuel vehicles United Parcel Service will add next year or the year after or the year after that.

But he does promise that the company’s fleet certainly will continue to get greener.

The Atlanta-based package delivery company weighs economic and environmental considerations each year in determining how many new alternative fuel vehicles the company will buy.

“I would expect that our fleet size will grow year to year,” he said last week during an interview. “We have this rolling laboratory approach where we test various types” of alternative fuel vehicles.

That means that trucks powered by compressed natural gas make sense in one market while propane-fueled vehicles are used in other places.

That means that liquefied natural gas makes sense one place and electric-hybrid vehicles are the choice somewhere else.

The company is even looking at hydraulic-hybrid vehicles, which capture energy from vehicle braking to help propel vehicles. And UPS recently completed a two-vehicle, two-year study of hydrogen-powered delivery trucks.

Clliimatte worrrriies,, economiics drriive WTE pllantt expansiions

TIME FOR A FILL-UP: A UPS driver refuels a compressed natural gas package car.

AIR

Stanford University
civil engineering pro-
fessor Perry McCarty
tells Weftec atten-
dees that methane
from waste must be
contained. Page 14

SUPERSTOCK

By Bruce Geiselman
WATER

Singapore is adding three reservoirs and promoting human reuse of treated wastewater. Page 14

Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and escalating energy and waste disposal prices are fueling increased interest in waste-to-energy facilities, according to industry insiders.

Three waste-to-energy incineration facilities are expanding or have recently expanded, and numerous counties and local governments are soliciting proposals for new plants. It marks the first growth in capacity

in more than a decade, said Ted Michaels, president of the Integrated Waste Services Association, a waste-to-energy trade group.

“We haven’t built any new capacity since 1995,” Michaels said. “Now, we have three existing facilities that have started to expand and there are some [requests for proposals] out for new facilities. That’s pretty exciting. There’s definitely activity in the industry going on now that

“It’s a moving number as you can guess,” Hall said about the number of alternative fuel vehicles the company plans to deploy in the future. “Our plans are that alternative fuels and alternative fuel technology will be a larger percentage of our fleet than it is today.”

Delivery vehicles have an estimated life expectancy of 20 to 25 years. So the company does not want to commit too heavily to one approach as the market continues to develop.