Spare The Air Award goes to Seneca and CAT

This afternoon, the City of Seneca and Clemson Area Transit were honored by South Carolina DHEC with the 2014 Spare the Air Award. This award highlights the efforts of community leaders who have made a voluntary commitment to implement positive changes within the community by adopting a new idea that meets the challenge of improving air quality in South Carolina. Seneca City Administrator Greg Dietterick said, “This is a pretty prestigious award with DHEC and if you look at the previous winners it is folks like the South Carolina Ports Authority, BMW and Boeing Corporation.” Five electric buses replaced the city’s diesel buses that were polluting the air, adds Dietterick. “They see how we are having problems with pollution across the country. When I first started looking at the electric bus system that was really a side shoot of zero emissions and eliminating all the greenhouse gases that buses pollute. What really drove that thing was if you looked at the maps, you could see how pollution was moving in from Atlanta, Georgia and it was starting to hit the Upstate. We were asked by the Federal Government to look at what we could do to eliminate that kind of stuff. That fit perfectly for applications from the Federal Government to get the grants to put into the electric buses.” The Federal Transit Authority awarded the city $4.1 million to replace its old fleet and provided additional funds for charging stations and shelters. Seneca also received funds from the DOT’s vehicle acquisition program and an FTA Livable Communities grant. These efforts have resulted in more CAT Bus riders and thus less greenhouse gases, concludes Dietterick. “The ridership numbers are through the roof, so that means more people are riding the buses and that is less cars, vans and trucks on the road. That is more emissions that we are saving. Just in our buses alone we are saving 700 tons of greenhouse gases annually.” DHEC presented the 2014 Spare the Air Award in the category of Outstanding Local Government to the City of Seneca and Clemson Area Transit at a ceremony on Friday at the Seneca Electric Transit Facility on Shiloh Road.