Home >  Health & Science

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

If idle hands are the devil's playground, idling school buses are his dirty belching playground equipment that can cough out unhealthy diesel exhaust queued in long, serpentine lines outside schools.

	Buses line up outside North Hills High School in Ross Wednesday afternoon. (Bill Wade, Post-Gazette)

Those exhausts can billow into the buses through open windows and doors, exposing children on the vehicles and those waiting to board to toxic chemicals and fine particles that can bring on, or worsen, asthma attacks.

Exhaust can even seep into the building ventilation systems and windows.

But buses' blue clouds should be reduced, at least for today, which has been proclaimed "Stop School Bus Idling Day" in Allegheny County. It's the first step in a campaign by the Group Against Smog and Pollution for a countywide regulation to curtail the exhausts.

GASP has sent letters to 300 schools, asking them to voluntarily stop all unnecessary bus idling today and to consider establishing policies to limit the practice in the future.

"We realize that it's just a day, but it's a way to educate school administrators and principals about transportation health issues," said Rachel Filippini, of GASP, who noted that today also is World Asthma Day.

"Diesel exhaust has been linked to cancer and is a trigger for asthma. Here, where we have buses sitting outside schools or traveling narrow streets, it's a concern."

The fine particulate pollution from buses is a health concern for everyone, but children are more susceptible to problems because they breathe 50 percent more air per pound of body weight than do adults.

In the United States, 1 out of every 15 children -- about 4.8 million -- has asthma, a chronic condition in which environmental triggers or other stimuli cause airways to narrow, restricting airflow. The disease is the leading single cause of childhood hospitalization, long-term illness and school absenteeism, accounting for more than 14 million missed school days nationally each year.

Pennsylvania has the third-highest number of children with asthma in the country.

"I called the state and it has no policy on school bus idling," said Sue Seppi, GASP president. "Some individual school bus fleets have policies, but others do not. And if they do have one, they need to enforce it."

Why idle?

More than 24 million children ride a bus to school every weekday in the United States, and most of those yellow vehicles are burning dirty diesel.

A certain amount of idling, usually between three and five minutes, is needed to properly warm up engines and build pressure in air brake systems. Additional idling time may be necessary in winter to allow heaters to warm the buses before students board.

But Filippini said GASP is targeting buses that are left running unnecessarily.

"We've received calls from people passing by schools where the buses are idling for extended periods of time," Filippini said. "Sometimes the problem occurs when drivers get to the school too early and let their buses idle even if they're not allowed to."

Because the engines are warm when buses arrive at schools, most should not require the long startup again if drivers shut them off while waiting for students.

David Hall, director of fiscal management and support services for the North Hills School District, which has a busing contract with Laidlaw Transit Inc., said the district doesn't have a policy to limit bus idling and hasn't received any complaints, even though the buses idle while waiting to pick up students at the junior and senior high schools.

"This is the first I've heard of the issue, but if the studies linking diesel exhaust and asthma are valid then limiting it makes sense to me," Hall said. "I've forwarded the GASP information to Laidlaw and asked them to participate."

A handful of states and metropolitan areas regulate idling time.

New Jersey, Connecticut, New York City and Washington DC limit bus idling to three minutes. Maryland, Maine and New York have five-minute limits. Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Hawaii have a variety of time limitations.

	Asthma fair The American Respiratory Alliance, in conjunction with GlaxoSmithKline, is sponsoring an Asthma Fair from 1 to 5 p.m. May 10 at the Chevrolet Amphitheatre, Station Square. Admission is free. Five physicians will be making presentations on various aspects of asthma, including triggers, medicines, exercise-induced asthma, pregnancy, food allergies and cooking. For more information, call 1-800-220-1990.

The outpouring of blue smoke from the nation's 444,000 school buses also has drawn the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which announced a new program last month to encourage the elimination of unnecessary school bus idling, the replacement of older buses with dirtier exhausts and the installation of effective emission control systems.

The new federal program, Clean School Bus USA, started in 2000 and has led to installation of equipment to reduce emissions on 130,000 buses. There are now 20 school bus retrofit projects under way and more than 120 school districts have expressed interest in participating.

Over the long run, federal regulations tightening the emissions standards of all diesel-powered vehicles and machinery in 2007 and the phase-in of ultra-low sulfur fuel between 2006 and 2010 will make bus exhaust 90 percent cleaner.

Being proactive

Some local school districts and school bus companies are already taking interim steps.

"We never let our buses run while they're sitting in front of the school so the fumes can't accumulate," said Cora Pros, transportation coordinator at the Carlynton School District in Carnegie, Rosslyn Farms and Crafton. "We also use low-sulfur fuel and upgrade our fleet every seven years."

Bruce Dakan, director of transportation and assistant business manager for the Penn Hills School District, said the district's 81 buses use low-sulfur fuel and the district has requested bus retrofitting information from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Drivers turn off bus engines at schools to save fuel, and there haven't been any complaints from students or parents about bus exhaust, he said.

"I think it's a good cause," Dakan said. "Anything that can improve the air quality and make it cleaner is OK. Plus, this has the double benefit of saving the school district money on fuel."