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TESTS REVEAL HIGH LEVELS OF TOXICS INSIDE DIESEL
SCHOOL BUSES
February 12, 2001
NEW REPORT FINDS CHILDREN’S EXPOSURE DOZENS OF TIMES HIGHER
THAN EPA ACCEPTABLE CANCER RISK LEVEL
LOS ANGELES (February 12, 2001) – A ride on a school bus may
prove hazardous to your child’s health, according to a new
study of air quality inside diesel school buses, the kind of school
bus most commonly used across the country. More than 23 million children
in the United States ride a bus to school.
An NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and Coalition for Clean
Air report released today, No Breathing in the Aisles: Diesel Exhaust
Inside School Buses, shows that children who ride a diesel school
bus may be exposed to up to four times more toxic diesel exhaust
than someone traveling in a car directly in front of it. The excess
exhaust levels on the buses were more than eight times the average
levels found in the ambient air in California and 23 to 46 times
higher than levels considered to be a significant cancer risk according
to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and federal guidelines.
"Children are especially sensitive to environmental hazards,
yet they’re the ones getting dosed with diesel riding to school," said
Gina Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., NRDC senior scientist. "The levels
we measured on some of these buses both surprised and worried us.
Worse still, we have reason to believe that these high levels are
fairly typical."
Researchers from NRDC, the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health
and the Coalition for Clean Air rode rented school buses along actual
elementary school bus routes in the Los Angeles area. Using sophisticated
equipment to continuously sample the air inside the buses for diesel
exhaust, they compared air quality inside the front and back of the
bus and with the windows open and closed. They also tested air quality
outside the bus and in a passenger car traveling ahead of it. Buses
were tested while idling, climbing or descending hills, and traveling
slowly with frequent stops.
The nearly 20 hours of sampling results on four school buses produced
dramatic results. Assuming bus rides totaling one or two hours per
day, 180 days per year for 10 years, the groups estimated the diesel
exhaust exposures are likely to result in an additional 23 to 46
cancer cases per million children exposed. This level of cancer risk
is 23 to 46 times the level considered to pose a significant cancer
risk by the EPA under the federal Clean Air Act and the Food Quality
Protection Act. Under California’s Safe Drinking Water and
Toxic Enforcement Act (Proposition 65), it also could trigger an
obligation to provide warnings to children that they are being exposed
to a cancer-causing chemical. "Parents have a right to expect
their kids will have a healthy and safe ride to school every day,
but our monitoring results tell a different story," said Gail
Ruderman Feuer, NRDC senior attorney. "We were troubled to learn
that kids are getting more toxic diesel exhaust inside the school
bus than outside, even if it’s not a 'smoking' diesel bus.
These monitoring results teach schools a tough lesson – they
need to clean-up their bus fleets in order to protect the health
of their kids."
Increasing numbers of health authorities, including EPA and the
state of California, have recognized the cancer-causing effects of
diesel exhaust. Diesel exhaust is also known to be a major source
of fine particles that can lodge deep in the lungs and exacerbate
asthma, a condition most prevalent among children. In addition, smog-forming
oxides of nitrogen, or "NOx," which are also emitted from
diesel engines in large quantities, have recently been linked to
decreased lung function growth in children. Children are generally
more susceptible than adults to the negative health effects of air
pollution because they breathe faster and have less developed lungs
and immune systems.
The vast majority of the nation’s school bus fleets still
run on diesel fuel. Many include large numbers of buses that are
over 10 years old, which are much more polluting than the diesel
buses manufactured today. In fact, some fleets – including
those in California, Washington and Texas – include buses manufactured
prior to 1977, before federal highway safety standards were even
adopted.
Cleaner alternatives to diesel buses, such as those that run on
natural gas and propane, are widely available and are being used
by an increasing number of school districts across the country. There
are over 2,600 school buses that run on natural gas or propane in
the nation today, and this number increases every day. Additionally,
federal, state and local governments have begun to set aside funds
earmarked exclusively to help public and private school fleet operators
cover the incremental costs of purchasing these cleaner alternatives.
"School districts can reduce a child’s exposure to smog-forming
chemicals by as much as 43 percent and toxic particles by another
78 percent just by making a switch to alternative fuel school buses," said
Todd Campbell, M.E.S., M.P.P., policy director for the Coalition
for Clean Air. "Diesel school buses remain the dirtiest option
available on the market today."
Interim solutions also exist to help clean up existing diesel school
buses prior to their replacement. Most notably, particulate traps
can be installed and used in conjunction with low-sulfur diesel fuel
to reduce particle emissions. However, the needed low-sulfur diesel
fuel is only currently available in California, New York City and
Houston, Texas, and it will not be required nationally until 2006.
In the meantime, NRDC and the Coalition for Clean Air recommend
that bus operators improve air quality by keeping the windows open
on the bus where possible and seating children closer to the front
of the bus before seating children in the rear. They also urge schools
to switch to alternative fuel school buses when making future purchase
decisions and urge policy-makers to make public funds available to
help defray the cost of this investment.
Southern California may be well on the way to cleaner school buses.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) will decide
whether to mandate that local school districts purchase only alternative
fuel school buses at a hearing in March. Environmentalists strongly
support adoption of an alternative fuel fleet rule and urge air districts
around the country to adopt similar rules.
###
To download a copy of the full report, click
here.
NRDC is a national, non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers
and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health
and the environment. Founded in 1970, the organization has more than
400,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington,
Los Angeles and San Francisco. More information is available through
NRDC’s Web site at www.nrdc.org.
The Coalition for Clean Air is a non-profit environmental organization
dedicated to restoring clean healthful air to California by advocating
responsible public health policy; providing technical and educational
expertise; and promoting broad-based community involvement. More
information is available through the Coalition’s website at
www.coalitionforcleanair.org.
CONTACT:
Todd Campbell, CCA, at (310) 441-1544
Tammy Boyer, NRDC, at (323) 934-6900
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