The Community Action Partnership of Orange County (CAPOC) now has a green vehicle to service its green Energy & Environmental Services Department, which provides energy conservation, weatherization, utility assistance and other services to low-income residents in Orange County. Helping at-risk populations in Orange County since 1965, CAPOC had been looking for a way to add a green vehicle to its energy fleet, believing that it only made sense to have a clean fuel vehicle lead the fleet of trucks serving home weatherization program clients.
“With this new CNG vehicle, we are hoping to make the roads greener,” said Kathy Kifaya, Director of Energy and Environmental Services for CAPOC. The MSRC provided $16,500 in Clean Transportation Funding under its Medium-Duty and Medium-Heavy-Duty Vehicles Program to CAPOC to offset the incremental cost of the new CNG-fueled, 16-foot box truck. This truck carries the materials and the crews providing weatherization services to income-qualified residents throughout the county, particularly targeting households with seniors, people with disabilities, vets and families with children under the age of five.
CAPOC’s weatherization program installs a host of energy efficiency and health and safety measures in homes to ensure good indoor air quality and that gas combustion appliances are working properly and efficiently. The program provides appliance replacements for household items like stoves, furnaces, air conditioning units, and water heaters. Weatherization also provides other water and energy conservation measures such as low-flow showerheads, attic insulation, window and door repairs so that homeowners save on their utility bills as well as conserve resources and reduce their carbon footprint. Last year, they weatherized more than 2,800 residences.
The organization has a fleet of 13 vehicles, and when they needed to replace an aging 1990 truck, their Field Supervisor Tom Spangler was charged with shopping for the new vehicle. “As part of his research, he went to one of our reliable truck vendors - Tom’s Truck Center - and they said that if we really wanted to do something great for the community, we should ‘go green,’” explained Kathy. “But because of our requirement for a competitive bid process, if we wanted to go green, the higher cost for a CNG vehicle would have stood out like a sore, or should I say, green thumb. We would have been required to do studies to show the benefits of a CNG vehicle and we just don’t have the time or the resources to do this.” She said they had funding through California’s federal LIHEAP (Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program) Weatherization Grant to purchase a new vehicle, but the cost for an alternative fuel vehicle would have made it cost prohibitive.
According to Kathy, CAPOC knew nothing about the MSRC until a representative from Tom’s Truck Center pointed them in the right direction. “It was serendipitous that we were in the market for a new truck, we had some funding in place already, and that Tom’s turned us onto the MSRC. We would never have been able to buy a CNG vehicle without the MSRC’s help. The MSRC’s funding helped level the playing field to get the CNG truck to be competitive with conventional vehicles across the board” noted Kathy.
Kathy is so excited about their CNG truck that she calls it her first “green baby” and has nicknamed it “VERDE.” They celebrated VERDE at an Earth Day event last month with a “Green” ribbon-cutting ceremony. And their crews are happy with the new truck too. “They tell me it takes about $45 to fill the tank with CNG. It usually takes about $80 or $90 to fill the tank of one of our diesel trucks. Even though the range of the CNG truck is less than a regular truck, the cost savings on fuel and the fact that it is a near-zero emission vehicle is unbelievable.” Conveniently enough, they have a CNG station right around the corner, so refueling is easy.
Now that they know about the MSRC and what a positive experience they had working with the MSRC staff, they definitely will be looking to the MSRC in the future. “When we change out our trucks and if and when the matching funding is there, I would love to do it again. It really means a lot to us and our community,” expressed Kathy.
“Maybe I’ll call the next one VERDE II,” she joked.