By LIBBY TUCKER The Associated Press

 The dusty black particulates belched from a running diesel engine are known to contribute to long-term health risks, cardiovascular problems and cancer.

But Brewer, a field safety coordinator with Andersen Construction, had no problem walking up and taking a big whiff of the exhaust from a forklift on the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center job site.

"Smell that?" said Brewer, waving his hand over the exhaust like a chef culling the scent of a boiling pot of soup. "It's belting out perfectly breathable air."

Instead of the usual sooty diesel exhaust, the machine emitted a blast of clear warm air that smelled faintly of burned french fries — the smell of an engine burning biodiesel.

Andersen began construction on the Portland hospital's $42 million expansion about a year and a half ago and soon after began receiving odor complaints about equipment diesel exhaust from hospital patients and staff.

The general contractor decided to experiment with ways to eliminate all diesel exhaust from the job site and drew from its experience working on other health care and high-tech projects on which it had to be sensitive to air quality.

Andersen workers first tried pumping the exhaust through a jury-rigged metal conduit to a spot farther from the building. The air was then fed through a negative air unit to filter the particulates.

But the odor stayed.

So in March Andersen rented a new forklift — one with a manufacturer's guarantee for biodiesel — and made the switch to the vegetable-based oil made mostly from used cooking grease.

"Rather than getting sick having to smell the diesel exhaust," Brewer said, "we'd rather make them hungry smelling the french fries."

Construction is one of the most polluting industries in the state in terms of air quality, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

"In our assessment of the emission inventory in the Portland area and statewide, of all the categories, construction equipment is one of the largest if not the largest sources of diesel emissions from diesel engines," said Kevin Downing, clean diesel program coordinator with DEQ.

In recognition, many contractors have begun to use biodiesel and ultra-low sulfur diesel in their heavy equipment to offset the impact of diesel exhaust on the health of workers and others who may be in close proximity to their construction sites.

Portland's Walsh Construction Co., for example, stores B20, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel with traditional petroleum diesel, at its equipment yard for use in delivery trucks. Walsh began using the alternative fuel last year, said Sloan Bradley, a Walsh equipment manager, as part of a broader commitment to environmentally friendly and sustainable practices.

"We support all of our projects in the Oregon and Southwest (Washington) region with trucks that run with biodiesel," Bradley said.

The Oregon office of general contractor Stacy and Witbeck Inc. also plans to use B20 for all of its heavy equipment including haul trucks, boom trucks, excavators, loaders and dozers when it builds a light rail line next year on downtown Portland's Transit Mall, according to TriMet.

Andersen's experiment was a success and may serve as a model for other contractors hoping to adopt clean diesel practices.

The Portland contractor stopped receiving odor complaints. Andersen says the company will begin using biodiesel in the forklifts at all its sites, including on a $104 million expansion project at Adventist Medical Center in Portland.

Andersen's equipment supplier, Sunbelt Rentals, is also on board. It plans to increase the amount of available rental equipment that can burn biodiesel.

"This was our first customer based on the West Coast to request a (forklift) for biodiesel use," said Bill McMullen, a sales representative with Sunbelt. "We're pumped about the bio thing now after this test case."

Providence Health System, which owns and manages three hospitals in the Portland region including Portland St. Vincent Medical Center, is also pleased with the results, said Mike Geller, recycling and waste supervisor at St. Vincent.

Last year Portland-area hospitals received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the Oregon Clean Diesel Initiative to establish a "clean diesel" zone, similar to a smoking ban, around all of its hospitals.

So far the grant has been used to ensure clean diesel emissions from vehicles in the hospitals' own fleets. But in the future, Providence plans to extend the clean diesel zone to cover emissions from vendor-owned vehicles on all its campuses as well.

"It will end up being part of the contract language for companies doing business on our campuses," said Mike Geller, who is also overseeing the Providence Health System clean diesel initiative. "We will be putting in language giving preferential treatment to vehicles using ultra-low or biodiesel or retrofits."

___

Andersen Construction: http://www.andersen-const.com/

___

Information from: Daily Journal of Commerce, http://www.djc-or.com/