Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) announced grants of $360,000 to seven Connecticut municipalities that will use the funds to replace older diesel trucks with new vehicles that burn fuel cleaner and more efficiently. The pollution controls on these vehicles are expected to help Connecticut achieve its clean air goals. The funds are from a settlement of a case involving environmental violations with American Electric Power Service Corporation, Columbus, Ohio and are required to be used to reduce diesel emissions in heavy traffic areas in environmental justice communities, according to a release from the State.

The seven grant recipients are:

Environmental justice communities are neighborhoods in which residents are subjected to unusually high levels of pollution from factories, power plants, highways, or other sources. Residents of such communities receive special protection because they often lack the economic means to decrease their exposure to pollution. In Connecticut, environmental justice communities include the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) list of distressed municipalities, as well as defined census block groups with 30% of their population living below 200% of the federal poverty level.

DEEP’s program for reducing diesel pollution was set out in the Connecticut Clean Diesel Plan. Initial clean diesel efforts prioritized the installation of emission controls on school buses because of health risks posed to children by diesel exhaust. A variety of funding sources were leveraged to reduce children’s exposure to fine particulate matter in diesel exhaust. With increased funding available from the federal Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA), DEEP has broadened the scope of its efforts by encouraging the installation of emission controls on trucks and construction equipment, replacing aging diesel trucks and engines, upgrading engines to meet current emission standards and reducing idling.