Press Mention The Charlotte Observer November 2, 2005
SACE Referenced
Schools, groups try to clear air for students
In this mention
Environmental groups including the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and Carolinas Clean Air Coalition tested pollution filters on Charlotte-Mecklenburg school buses, demonstrating significant reductions in harmful diesel particulates. The article examines the effectiveness and cost of retrofitting school buses with emission controls, noting that while solutions exist, they remain expensive and difficult for school districts to implement at scale.
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Schools, groups try to clear air for students
Pollution filters on buses make a big difference, but they're expensive
BY BRUCE HENDERSON
Staff Writer
Some of the pollution from Charlotte-Mecklenburg's school buses ends up in the worst place: among students inside them.
Environmental groups Wednesday tested the effectiveness of pollution filters installed on some of the system's buses. It's part of a national campaign to retrofit diesel-fueled buses with emission controls.
Pollution comes out a bus tailpipe, but also off the engine. When the door opens for students, engine gases waft inside the passenger compartment.
Air scientist Bruce Hill held an instrument at the door of an idling CMS bus. Its measurement of tiny particles coming from the engine: 900 micrograms per cubic meter of air, well above the legal limit in open air. Hill did the same at a retrofitted bus: 23 micrograms.
Such particles are potentially harmful because they can work their way deeply into the lungs and have been linked to premature death. Diesel exhaust also contains nitrogen oxides, which contribute to the irritating gas ozone, and dozens of chemicals classified as hazardous.
Mecklenburg County residents face a lifetime cancer risk from diesel exhaust that is 389 times higher than the federal government deems acceptable, the advocacy group Clean Air Task Force says. The estimate was based on research by a contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency.
American children spend an average of about an hour a day on buses, the Environmental Protection Agency says. Because they breathe in more air per pound of body weight than adults, children are especially susceptible to pollution.
The Charlotte region's Carolinas Clean Air Coalition and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy are working with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Gaston County schools on the study. They want to learn which combination of filters and fuels are most affordable and effective.
Solutions are available, but they're not cheap or fast fixes.
- Retrofitted pollution controls cost about $450 to $7,000 each. Grants are available, but few school boards can afford to outfit their full fleets.
Expensive and, for now, less readily available than conventional fuel.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg began installing pollution controls on some of its buses last year, and now has one type of device on about 200 of its 1,170 buses. The system got more state and federal grants this year. A system policy to reduce needless idling of buses, reducing emissions, will go into effect in January.
Rowan and Cabarrus counties are working toward school bus retrofits, said Nancy Bryant of the Carolinas coalition.