Children must be protected from unhealthful school bus emissions

[Guest guest]

http://www.dallasnews.com/editorial/229481_schoolbuses_03.html

December 4, 2000

Children must be protected from unhealthful school bus emissions

If your child rides the bus to public school in Dallas County, there is

about an even chance that an unhealthy mix of toxic gases and chemicals

regularly assaults his lungs. That's because as many as 45 percent of the

buses operated by the Dallas County public schools run on highly polluting

diesel fuel. Another significant portion - less than 10 percent - run on

also-polluting gasoline.

On schools days throughout the county, the scene is repeated: children

dashing to board buses whose idling engines spew poisonous heavy metals and

unhealthful fine particles of soot, which imbed themselves in the children's

tender lungs, causing all manner of respiratory diseases. The buses also

emit large amounts of nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds, both of

which help to create harmful ground-level ozone.

It is some consolation that approximately half of the county's buses run on

cleaner-burning propane. Indeed, the county school board deserves credit for

increasing the percentage of propane-burning buses in its 1,300-bus fleet in

recent years and for investigating other low-emission technologies.

Nonetheless, approximately half of the county's buses run on fuels whose

emissions are considerably more damaging to children. That needs to change.

The Texas Legislature should help when it reconvenes in January. It should

ensure that public schools are included in legislation, which it is almost

certain to pass, that would grant incentives to operators of large diesel

fleets to use cleaner-burning fuels and to purchase cleaner-burning engines.

California's legislature recently set a good example by voting to

appropriate $40 million to finance the purchase of new, cleaner buses, and

an additional $10 million to buy soot-capturing devices for old buses.

In the meantime, Dallas County (whose buses serve the Dallas Independent

School District and other districts in the county) should do its utmost to

continue increasing the proportion of its fleet that runs on propane. And it

should consider using " diesel one " fuel. At present, it uses only " diesel

two, " which is cheaper but dirtier than " diesel one. " By contrast, Dallas

Area Rapid Transit uses a mixture of diesels one and two.

Dallas County has a responsibility to do its fair share to clean the air in

a region that is under threat of federal sanctions for excessive pollution.

The county schools are part of the problem; they need to be a greater part

of the solution.