Club backs plan to protect kids from school bus fumes

By Kevin Finney
September 2000

The exhaust from diesel trucks and buses is dirty and deadly. It has a very high content of tiny particulates that lodge deep in human lung tissues, causing a variety of ailments, including lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. These particulates, too small be cleared by the natural cleansing process of the lungs, pose a specific risk to children.

Diesel exhaust also contains at least 40 different substances that are known to be toxic, including benzene, chlorine, formaldehyde, mercury compounds, styrene, toluene, etc. This exhaust aggravates asthma attacks, can cause premature death and is a major source of smog-forming nitrogen oxides.

The Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club is supporting efforts to clean up school bus fleets in Los Angeles County and throughout the rest of the South Coast Air Basin (Orange County and portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Children come into contact with diesel exhaust every time they ride a school bus, or play near or sit in a classroom near a school bus that is idling. Children are more susceptible to the health impacts of air pollution than adults because of their smaller body size and faster metabolisms and respiratory rates. Kids tend to engage in play and rigorous activity more frequently than adults, even when air pollution levels are high. It is well documented that a child’s developing lungs receive and retain a greater dose of pollution than those of an adult, relative to body size.

In November, Southern California’s air regulatory agency, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, will be considering Proposed Rule 1195-Clean On-Road School Buses.

This rule is expected to require local school districts and private school bus operators to buy clean alternative-fuel buses such as those powered by natural gas or electricity when they order new buses. The district also is considering requiring school districts to retrofit existing diesel buses with particulate traps that curb pollution in combination with the use of a low-sulfur diesel fuel.

This rule is one of several so-called “fleet rules” which the AQMD has proposed to reduce diesel and other harmful emissions in the region. Environmentalists are strongly supporting these proposed fleet rules as an important step in cleaning up the region’s toxic air pollution, but they have come under attack from diesel fuel producers, trucking associations, and some fleet operators and local government agencies.

An in-depth multiple air toxins study performed by the AQMD found that diesel soot is responsible for at least 70% of the region’s total cancer toxic air risk. The study estimates the region’s air toxic risk on average is approximately 1,400 cancer cases for every million individuals living in the basin. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency establishes acceptable air toxic risk at 1 cancer case per million individuals exposed.

In June, the AQMD adopted three rules requiring covering garbage trucks, transit buses, and light and medium duty vehicles in public fleets. This was an important victory for clean air advocates and reflects the growing momentum of efforts to reduce diesel pollution.

Other recent victories for clean-air advocates include a unanimous decision by L.A. County’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to maintain its alternative fuel policy. This action came after serious indications that the MTA board was considering a plan to purchase diesel transit buses again.

The MTA also voted to install particulate traps on existing buses and to give $2 million to support local research into zero-pollution fuel cell technology; a stunning turnaround hailed by a broad coalition of environmental, public health and community-based groups. These actions support the Club’s stance that there’s no going back to dirty, deadly diesel.

Kevin Finney is co-chair of the Angeles Chapter’s Air Quality, Global Warming and Energy.