[StBernard] [r6news] Blue Skyways bringing cleaner Louisiana air through cleaner school buses

[Westley Annis]

More than half a million dollars to go to communities to cut diesel
emissions

(Dallas, Texas – February 21, 2007)  The Environmental Protection Agency
and its Blue Skyways Collaborative announced more than $678,000 in
grants to communities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas to help
cut air pollution from school buses.

In Louisiana, the Caddo Parish Public School District was awarded
$53,599 to implement usage of biodiesel fuel in all of its 487 school
buses and retrofit older school buses with diesel emission controls.
The project is expected to reduce more than 200,000 pounds of
smog-forming pollutants and 6,000 pounds of particulate matter per year.

“EPA is leading the way to ensure all school buses get a passing grade
when it comes to diesel exhaust,” said EPA Regional Administrator
Richard E. Greene. “Blue Skyways is helping to equip buses with the
latest technologies, so we can reduce their emissions by up to 90
percent.”

The goal of the grant program is to reduce children's exposure to diesel
exhaust and the amount of air pollution created by diesel school buses.
While pollution from diesel vehicles has health implications for
everyone, it is especially harmful to children.  Diesel exhaust contains
nitrogen oxides, fine particles (soot) and air toxics.  Nitrogen oxides
are precursors of ozone (smog) and, when breathed in, fine particles can
lodge deep in the lungs.

The Blue Skyways Collaborative was formed in 2006 to encourage voluntary
air emissions reductions throughout North America’s heartland.
Collaborative partners work to make this goal possible through
implementation of projects that use innovations in diesel equipment,
alternative fuels, renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency.
With more than $271 million in projects, the program currently saves 125
million gallons of fuel per year, cuts 505,000 tons per year in
greenhouse gases and reduces 40,000 tons per year in air pollutants.

The collaborative’s clean school bus program focuses specifically on
bringing together partners from business, education, transportation and
public health organizations to eliminate unnecessary bus idling,
retrofit buses and replace the oldest buses with new, less polluting
ones.

Many of the collaborative’s 44 partners will converge on Bentonville,
Arkansas, on Feb. 21-22 for the program’s biannual meeting at Wal-Mart’s
Sam M. Walton Development Complex.  During the meeting, the group will
prioritize upcoming projects and grants, share technology updates, and
plan future activities.

Additional information on the Blue Skyways program and its efforts to
provide cleaner-running school buses is available at
http://www.blueskyways.org/.

To learn more about activities in EPA Region 6, please visit
www.epa.gov/region6.

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