Nov 6, 2007 10:57 pm US/Central
Is The Air On School Buses Making Our Kids Sick?
High Levels Of Diesel Exhaust Is Damaging To Children's Developing Lungs
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
School buses may be the safest way to go to school, but are they the healthiest? New research says there's a big problem with the air your children are breathing on their way to and from school.
As CBS 2 Medical Editor Mary Ann Childers reports, children are facing serious health risks from sick school buses.
Every day 3-year-old Imanni spends an hour on a school bus going to day care. Every night she has problems breathing.
"Yesterday she stayed home from school because she was having respiratory issues…her asthma was flaring up," said Imanni's mother, Sherry Hurdle. "Now I'm wondering, OK, does it have anything to do with her riding the bus?"
Dr. Bruce Hill, Ph.D., senior scientist with the Clean Air Task Force, is convinced it could. He says children riding school buses are exposed to extremely high levels of dangerous diesel exhaust.
"The pollution enters the school bus when the bus stops and door opens," Hill said.
Hill says it comes from open vent pipes in conventional, front-engine school buses. They release clouds of exhaust that get sucked in when the door opens. But pollution also comes from the tailpipe.
"When we stop at a bus stop, the door opens, emissions come along the bus when the wind's from the rear and right in the front door," he said.
First CBS 2 tested the outdoor air quality. Next, we rode the bus. Inside, particles from the engine measured four to 10 times higher than outside. Tiny exhaust particles from the tailpipe spiked 20 to 50 times greater.
"There you go," Hill said. "We got blasted right there... it went over 100,000."
If windows are closed, diesel exhaust is trapped inside.
"Children actually breathe much more air per pound of body weight than adults do, and their lungs are still growing," said Brian Urbaszewski of the Respiratory Health Association. "So we're really concerned about kids' long-term lung health."
No level of diesel particle exhaust is safe to breathe. In children, it's linked to respiratory problems, asthma and increased emergency room visits. In adults it raises the risk of heart attack, irregular heartbeat and stroke.
Four school districts in Lake County are doing something about it.
"To us it was a no-brainer, something that we felt was an absolutely necessity to do," said Mark Clement of Oak Grove District #68.
With help from an Environmental Protection Agency grant and the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, these districts are retro-fitting their buses with closed engine filtration systems, and replacing mufflers with diesel particle filters. Tests on these "clean" buses show no increase in diesel pollution.
"If they know about this problem regardless of how much it cost to get these buses filtered it needs to be done," Hurdle said.
But cost is the problem. It's as much as $1,000 to retro-fit an engine; as much as $8,000 for a tailpipe.
Advocates argue the price will be a even higher if we don't fix the problem now.
"Every clean school bus makes a difference. And every bus we can clean up means there's another 60, 70 kids that are breathing clean air," Urbaszewski said.
This problem affects every school bus in the state made before last July. Since then, all new buses -- in fact, all diesel vehicles in the U.S. -- must have this clean technology. The Respiratory Health Association says there are 19,000 school buses in Illinois right now, carrying 2 million children. And many of those vehicles could be in service for the next 10 years, or even longer.
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