SACRAMENTO - The California Air Resources Board today announced that Ryder System, Inc., a provider of transportation and supply chain management solutions, paid $1,000,000 for failure to conduct testing and maintain complete records of required annual opacity tests on heavy-duty vehicles in its California fleet in 2008 and 2009.
 
Annual opacity tests, performed to determine whether a truck produces visible smoke from its exhaust, and related record-keeping are required under California law. Records reviewed by ARB enforcement staff indicated that Ryder failed to conduct tests and maintain records of the tests on vehicles that were in service for four or more years. This was Ryder’s first ARB violation in its 53 years of operating in California.
 
The one-million dollar settlement ($1,031,000 precisely) is in two parts. The first, a $773,000 payment, will go to the California Air Pollution Control Fund, established to mitigate various sources of pollution through education and the advancement and use of cleaner technology. The remaining $258,000 will fund investments to upgrade a maintenance facility to service trucks that are powered by natural gas. The maintenance facility, located in West Sacramento, will be open to the public for use by commercial transportation fleets. 
 
“Strong processes and proper documentation demonstrating compliance with the State of California’s regulations are essential to verifying that all businesses are complying with the law,” said ARB Enforcement Chief James Ryden. “Ryder has a long history of working collaboratively with our organization to ensure environmental compliance of its operations in California.  We appreciate Ryder’s efforts to resolve this issue. We also commend their continued leadership in expanding the use of clean technology vehicles, and, under this settlement, for supporting increased numbers of lower emission alternative fuel trucks in California.”