GRANTS WILL HELP CUT POLLUTION IN VENTURA COUNTY; AGENCIES TO PURCHASE CLEAN-AIR VEHICLES.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

Workers at California Lutheran University soon will get a real charge from working in the sun.

With a grant of $32,011 from the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, CLU will outfit its fleet of electric carts with solar panels.

CLU now has one prototype solar-outfitted cart that works ``like a charm,'' said Brad Anderson, CLU's facilities trades supervisor.

On sunny days, the carts will continually charge as long as the sun shines. A driver needs only to point the cart south and let the solar panels do the rest.

``The thing that's so beautiful about it is its simplicity,'' Anderson said.

Through the same air district grant program, Thousand Oaks is buying 10 natural-gas pickup trucks and four 12-passenger vans. Other programs funded by the district this year include a $65,000 Ventura County plan to install a compressed natural gas fueling facility and a $30,000 Fillmore program $30,000 to purchase two pickup trucks and two vans with compressed natural gas engines.

Since the program began in 1996, the Air Pollution Control District has received $200,000 annually from the Department of Motor Vehicles to help reduce vehicle emissions.

Public and private agencies can apply for the money, which the district distributes based on cost-effectiveness, innovation and whether the applying agency can pay for part of the cost on its own, said Mike Villegas, manager of the district's rules and technological advancement division.

Cal Lutheran's project requires an additional $22,989 from the university and will include replacing four older gasoline-powered vehicles with five new, solar-powered, electrical carts at $5,000 apiece.

The cart replacement and solar outfitting are elements of a five-year CLU program to reduce emissions, said Dennis Gillette, CLU's vice president for administrative services. One item slated for replacement is a 1978 Chevrolet van.

Villegas said that large organizations like CLU traditionally keep such older, polluting trucks around and use them as though they were mobile tool boxes.

``They run these old, dirty trucks and they keep them around forever,'' he said.

The electric carts do the same jobs, but in a way that doesn't harm the environment. The carts have a service bed and top rack in which workers can store tools or carry equipment.

``They are an industrial-strength cart,'' Gillette said. ``They tend to get worked very hard.''

Some of CLU's 20 electric carts are dedicated to plumbing, electrical or grounds work. The rest are used by various campus departments to cart computer or audio-visual equipment from one building to another.

``They have a multitude of users, campuswide,'' Gillette said.

The solar panels will save CLU the cost of recharging the carts, but the main goal of the campaign is to reduce emissions.

``The cost avoidance is an additional benefit,'' Gillette said.

Villegas said the solar panels help the environment because power plants burn a little less fuel to generate electricity.

On cloudy days, workers can simply bypass the solar panels and switch to battery power.

Thousand Oaks, meanwhile, is buying 10 Ford natural-gas pickup trucks and four 12-passenger vans at a cost of about $320,000. In the past two years, the city received $92,300 from the district.

The vehicles will replace 10-year-old station wagons and sedans that are part of the city's car-pool and van-pool program, said Bob Miller, fleet services supervisor for Thousand Oaks.

``Our goal has been since 1992 to convert one-third of our fleet to alternative-fuel vehicles,'' Miller said.

After the arrival of the trucks and vans, 21 of the city's fleet of 220 vehicles will be ``super ultra low-emission vehicles,'' he said. Those 21 vehicles include the city's EV1 electric car.

The natural-gas vehicles get about 235 miles to the tank and look and sound the same as gasoline vehicles. Natural gas runs about 91 cents a gallon.

The Air Pollution Control District district received 10 applications from public and private agencies for the 1997-98 grant money, and approved six.

In addition to the CLU, Thousand Oaks, Ventura County and Fillmore grants, Oxnard received $24,000 toward the purchase of one natural gas-powered pickup truck and two electric utility carts that will replace three gasoline-powered pickup trucks. Oxnard also received $10,000 toward a refuse truck that will pick up both trash and recyclables. The dual-use truck will replace two trucks that make one trip each.