|
School Bus Sector
West Coast Collaborative Clean School Bus
USA Request for Proposals Is Now Closed
The West Coast Collaborative
requested proposals aimed at reducing diesel emissions from
school buses operating in the Regions 9 and 10 states. The
application deadline has now passed. We look forward to reviewing
all proposals.
Clean School Bus USA
The goal of Clean School Bus USA is to reduce both children's
exposure to diesel exhaust and the amount of air pollution created
by diesel school buses. Clean School Bus USA brings together
partners from business, education, transportation, and public
health organizations to work toward these goals:
- Encouraging policies and practices to eliminate unnecessary
public school bus idling.
- Upgrading ("retrofitting") buses that will remain
in the fleet with better emission control technologies and/or
fueling them with cleaner fuels.
- Replacing the oldest buses in the fleet with new, less polluting
buses.
Statistics show that school buses are the safest way to transport
children; the EPA wants to ensure that they are also the
cleanest. There are an estimated 400,000 diesel school buses
on the road, with roughly one third manufactured before 1990.
The pre-1990 school bus fleets are the heaviest polluters and
should be replaced. The remaining school buses, manufactured
between 1990 and 2006, can be made much cleaner by installing
devices designed to reduce pollution and switching to cleaner
fuels.
Children are especially sensitive to air pollution because
their respiratory systems are still developing and they breathe
at a faster rate. More than 24 million children ride in school
buses daily, spending, on average, an hour and a half each
weekday on the bus. Recent studies suggest that children’s school
bus commutes can expose them to significantly higher concentrations
of pollutants than what is measured in a community’s outdoor
air.
Recent
News
Projects
Since 2001, the EPA has awarded over $5.5 million to clean
up school buses in the West. The projects to date in the
West have leveraged over $13 million in additional matching funds
and in-kind services.
2006 West Coast projects include:
Grantee: Menifee Union School District, CA
EPA Funds: $400,000 | Match: $2,200,000
Project: Menifee Union School District is replacing 5 buses
with new compressed natural gas (CNG) fueled buses.
Grantee: Southwest Transportation Agency, CA
EPA Funds: $88,500 | Match: $230,000
Project: The Southwest Transportation Agency is replacing
2 diesel buses with new compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.
Grantee: West County Transportation Agency, CA
EPA Funds: $88,500 | Match: $276,030
Project: The West County Transportation Agency in Santa Rosa,
CA, is replacing older diesel engines with newer technology engines
and retrofit each bus with a diesel particulate filter.
Grantee: South Lane School District, OR
EPA Funds: $270,000 | Match: $349,200
Project: "Rural Clean Trips to Schools" will replace
nine of the oldest school buses in five school districts in Lane
County Oregon. They include: South Lane, Blachly, Mitchell, Marcola,
and Bandon School Districts.
Grantee: Bethel School District, OR
EPA Funds: $120,000 | Match: $19,000
Project: Bethel School District will install 64 diesel oxidation
catalysts and closed crankcase ventilation systems on buses in
its fleet.
Grantee: Granger School District, WA
EPA Funds: $26,410
Project: Granger School District will replace one school
bus.
Grantee: Tacoma School District, WA
EPA Funds: $153,590 | Match: $145,000
Project: Tacoma School District will retrofit 156 school
buses with diesel oxidation catalysts, 43 of which will also
include closed crankcase ventilation systems.
2005 West Coast projects include:
Grantee: Tucson Unified School District, AZ
EPA Funds: $493,003 | Match: $7,008,800
Project: Tucson Unified School District will purchase 61
CNG buses in a partnership with EPA, the American Lung Association,
Clean Cities and the City of Tucson.
Grantee: Visalia Unified School District, CA
EPA Funds: $96,000 | Match: $230,000
Project: Replace 2 diesel buses with CNG buses.
Grantee: Sweetwater Union High School, CA
EPA Funds: $77,580 | Match: $216,589
Project: Replace two 1986 buses with two clean diesel buses.
Grantee: Windsor Unified School District, CA
EPA Funds: $182,977 | Match: $317,027
Project: Windsor Unified School District will replace two
1980s diesel buses with two CNG buses and fuel 6 others on
B100.
Grantee: Napa Valley Unified School District, CA
EPA Funds: $30,000 | Match: $185,843
Project: Napa Valley Unified School District, in
partnership with the electric utility and a non-profit consortium
(Advanced Energy), will bring the first plug-in hybrid school
bus to California.
Grantee: Basin School District, ID
EPA Funds: $250,000 | Match: $15,000
Project: The district will install 87 diesel oxidation catalysts
and nine block heaters as a pilot. This is the first Clean
School Bus project in Idaho.
Grantee: Eugene School District, OR
EPA Funds: $150,000 | Match: $29,262
Project: The Eugene School District will coordinate the retrofitting
of approximately 160 diesel school buses with five other neighboring
districts.
Grantee: Peninsula School District, WA
EPA Funds: $300,000 | Match: $500,000
Project: Peninsula School District will replace eight 1981-1991
diesel school buses with new clean diesel buses.
Grantee: Nevada State Office of Energy, NV
EPA Funds: $496,000
Project: The Nevada State Office of Energy will retrofit 600 school buses throughout
the state with diesel oxidation catalysts.
2004 West Coast projects include:
Grantee: San Diego Air Pollution Control District, CA
EPA Funds: $355,000 | Match: $250,619
Project: San Diego Air Pollution Control District will establish
a sub-grant program for school districts throughout San Diego
County to retrofit diesel school buses with particulate matter
filters. The county includes many areas where environmental justice
is a concern.
Grantee: South Coast Air Quality Management District, CA
EPA Funds: $495,000 | Match: $255,000
Project: The South Coast Air Quality Management District
will replace seven pre-1987 diesel school buses with new compressed
natural gas buses. The grant will also install up to 100 diesel
oxidation catalysts on 1990 to 1993 model year diesel school
buses in primarily environmental justice areas.
Grantee: Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority, OR
EPA Funds: $500,000 | Match: $200,000
Project: The Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority will make
ultra low sulfur diesel available to 15 fleets across Oregon
(approximately 4 million gallons per year) and retrofit 42 school
buses with particulate matter filters.
2003 West Coast projects include:
Grantee: Paradise Valley Unified School District, AZ
EPA Funds: $300,000
Project: The Paradise Valley Unified School District will
demonstrate how a large, suburban school district near Phoenix,
Arizona will retrofit 20 buses with particulate matter filters,
fuel 114 with ultra low sulfur diesel, and introduce this fuel
into an area of the country where it is not currently available.
Grantee: Clovis Unified School District, CA
EPA Funds: $286,700
Project: The Clovis Unified School District will demonstrate
how a large, suburban school district near Fresno, California
will retrofit 53 buses with diesel oxidation catalysts and evaluate
their performance running on emulsified diesel fuel; plus retrofit
9 buses with diesel particulate filters and fuel them with ultra
low sulfur diesel fuel.
Grantee: Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, WA
EPA Funds: $366,000 | Match: $122,000
Project: The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency will work with
four other clean air agencies to assist four rural school districts
in the Western part of Washington state in retrofitting 139 buses
with diesel oxidation catalysts and 21 with diesel particulate
matter filters and using ultra low sulfur diesel fuel.
|
