Case Study: Diesel Street Sweeper Replacement

Bay Head, Ocean County

Opportunity/Challenges
Bay Head, New Jersey is a town located on the Jersey shore, well-known for its beautiful beaches. Over the years, Bay Head has experienced various environmental challenges. At the center of Bay Head lies a rail yard that has been a source of environmental contamination issues since the 1880s. The extensive diesel locomotive use at this facility, as well as tourist traffic along Route 35 in summer months, has created an excessive amount of harmful emissions. This was worsened by Bay Head’s diesel street sweeper, which, after 30 years of operation, had heavily corroded and resulted in severe dust and particle release. As such, Bay Head has been exposed to unprecedented levels of air pollution, seeping into the neighboring communities of Point Pleasant Beach, Point Pleasant Borough, and Mantoloking Borough. This pollution has also affected ecosystems within the area, including Twilight Lake, which has been harmed due to excessive amounts of phosphates, nitrates, and total solids entering the lake. Increasing the frequency of street sweeping is one way to improve the lake’s health, which was previously not possible due to the harmful and unpredictable nature of the diesel sweeper’s daily functionality.

Partners
NJDEP, Bay Head Environmental Commission, Save Barnegat Bay, Bay Head Planning Board, Bay Head Public Works Department.

Action
Bay Head received a used diesel street sweeper from the U.S. Army back in 2013. During the 10 years of Bay Head’s ownership, nearly all of its systems had deteriorated. In the rare instance the vehicle wasn’t broken down or being fixed, it was performing inefficiently. As a result, repeated sweepings were often necessary. In late 2023, leveraging funding from the NJDEP, Bay Head purchased a new battery electric street sweeper. The old dirty and inefficient diesel street sweeper was decommissioned and put out of service after 30 years of operation.

Funding/Resources
Funding for this project was provided by the NJDEP’s WorkClean: Diesel Modernization Program (DMP), through which auction proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) were thus utilized. Bay Head was awarded $253,000 in reimbursement funds for the purpose of purchasing the electric street sweeper. Through the DMP, over $91 million dollars in grants have been awarded to towns throughout New Jersey, including overburdened communities such as Pleasantville, Camden, Trenton, and Newark. For more information on the nearly 400 projects funded by the Diesel Modernization Program, check out NJDEP’s Diesel Dashboard.

Results and Benefits
The new battery electric sweeper is expected to significantly decrease diesel emissions in Bay Head. It will efficiently clean sand and debris from streets and reduce emissions, which will work to reverse the harm done to local ecosystems like Twilight Lake. The all-electric sweeper is extremely quiet which will also greatly reduce noise pollution that existed before with the diesel sweeper. This vehicle electrification replacement project immediately provides a direct health benefit to the estimated 4,740 residents within and around the borough of Bay Head by operating cleanly without any harmful emissions.