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Utah Department of
Environmental Quality
By the start of next school year, about one fourth of Utah’s school buses could be cleaner thanks to a pot of money the Division of Air Quality expects to receive.
The Division of Air Quality (DAQ) announced in July that it plans to receive about $2.3 million in federal, state and local grants to retrofit roughly 1,150 diesel-powered school buses with pollution control devices.
“We have been working with communities and organizations to secure this funding,” said Cheryl Heying, director of DAQ. “This is truly a partnership effort that will make a difference in our air quality.”
School districts will be able to help select the vendor and work with them to install the recommended technology – diesel oxidation catalyst and closed crankcase ventilation systems – which reduces pollution in the bus cabin as well as the amount of pollutants being emitted from the tailpipe.
“What these devices are designed to do is release 40 percent less particulate matter into the air,” said Mat Carlile, environmental scientist with DAQ. Particulate matter is the tiny microscopic particles – soot and dust – that when breathed can get trapped in the lungs.
The installation of the devices is good news for schoolchildren riding the bus and those who wait near them as they idle, adds Stacee Adams, environmental planning consultant with the Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Planning and Public Affairs.
“Not only does the outside air receive the benefit of reduced pollution, but the air children breathe inside the bus cabin will be cleaner as well,” she said.
Children are more at risk to the particulate pollution that spouts out of diesel-powered buses because their lungs are not as fully developed as adults.
For much of this past year, DAQ has been working with the state Office of Education, the Salt Lake County Mayor’s Office, Utah Clean Cities, Utah Department of Transportation, Wasatch Front Regional Council, Mountainland Association of Governments, Utah Moms for Clean Air, Utah Clean Cities, Wasatch Clean Air Coalition and Utah County, to secure funding. The Environmental Protection Agency also supplied $400,000 that will be supplanted with DAQ’s $96,000 and $100,000 appropriation from the 2008 Legislature.
Another $1.5 million will likely come from the Wasatch Front Regional Council and Mountainland Association of Governments, pending final approval, Carlile said. The rest of the money would come from non-competitive EPA grants, he added.
Installation of the pollution control devices will likely begin next year.
Approximately half of Utah’s school districts are participating and DAQ is encouraging those who haven’t signed on yet to contact them for more information or to express their interest in the project. Mat Carlile is the project manager and can be reached at 801-536-4136 or mcarlile@utah.gov.