EPA to help fund greener bus fleet
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By Tom Mitchell Staff Writer - Published: May 15, 2009
A $1.73 million stimulus grant, awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, will help pay for the purchase of at least 30 new cleaner diesel engine bus models in Vermont school districts this year, state officials said recently.
The funding is intended to induce new purchases of buses to replace older models, over and above what school districts have already earmarked for replacement, Harold Garabedian, a spokesman for the Air Pollution Control Division, in Department of Environmental Conservation, said late last week.
"It is not intended to fund expansion of school bus fleets, only to induce more rapid turnover," he said. The intent is that the buses will be equipped with idling equipment, Garabedian said.
The state will be putting together an application process that will allow school districts to apply for funding under the program administered under the federal Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, Garabedian said. "We are focusing on getting rules and procedures out to school districts."
Some of the funding will also be set aside to install a few new stationary engines at sawmills that also burn diesel, Garabedian said.
The new buses, meanwhile, will not only meet current standards, but also help school districts comply with a two-year-old state law that bans most school buses from idling when parked on school grounds and requires that schools have idling policies.
"The intent is the (new) buses will have auxiliary heaters to preheat the vehicle without the engine," Garabedian said of the new models.
Likely at least 30 and possibly more would be purchased with help from the stimulus funds, he said.
With about 1,500 school buses now in service in the state, roughly 150 of those are replaced annually, Garabedian said.
A requirement of the program is that the old engine on a replaced bus be taken out of service totally, Garabedian said. Assurance that the engines are no longer in use will be documented in a certification process, Garabedian said.
For example, a school district may sell a chassis of an older bus, but will be required to take the engine out of that model when it counts towards the purchase of a new bus, Garabedian said.
Exhaust from diesel engines poses a health threat because the fumes carry fine particles that can aggravate asthma, cause lung disease and premature death, officials said.
EPA has also classifed diesel particulates as a likely human carcinogen, officials said.
All six states in New England have asthma rates for children that are about 10 percent of the overall child population, EPA officials said.
Emission control systems on newer buses tend to be cleaner, in that they reduce the amount of diesel soot or particulate matter and nitrogen oxides released to the air, Garabedian said.
They also plan to start a similar program to replace the older exhaust systems on stationary engines such as those found in saw mills, Garabedian said.
"We (plan to) have a … look at stationary diesel engines and the cost benefit of improving emissions from that activity," Garabedian said.
Using $200,000 of the funding, they will be developing guidelines for the program, Garabedian said. The program will likely require applicants to put up a partial share of the cost of replacements, he said.
Part of the overall problem with diesel vehicles (and their older emission controls), the engines can last a long time, as long as 20 to 30 years, EPA officials said.
The typical heavy-duty truck or bus burns about a gallon of diesel fuel for each hour it idles, giving off large amounts of pollution, wastes fuel and causes excess engine wear.
The state received a $196,880 clean diesel EPA grant last year that has been spent to help pay for installation of idle reduction gear on 24 more schools buses in the state to reduce the wasting of fuel on those buses.
It has helped some school districts comply with the law that prohibits idling by most school buses and requires school district to have bus idling policies.
The new grant award should not only help create jobs, but assist local economies, EPA officials said.
The funds will protect human health, by also cut diesel emissions, EPA officials said. "This Recovery Act funding will provide a great boost to Clean Air investments in Vermont," Ira Leighton, acting regional administrator for EPA's New England office, said.
On a national level, the funding has been made available for support of clean diesel projects and loan programs to address the nation's existing fleet of more than 11 million diesel engines, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said.
"This is part of the nationwide clean energy transition, that is clearing the air and creating millions of jobs across America," Jackson said.
"Communities using innovative measures to cut harmful diesel emissions are cutting costs, creating jobs and keeping people healthy," she said.
The clean diesel funding has been appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which President Obama has said must be implemented with transparency and accountability. In the program, American citizens may see how every dollar is being invested at www.recovery.gov, officials said.
tom.mitchell@rutlandherald.com
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