St. Louis Park buses to get internal makeover
By Seth Rowe - Sun Newspapers(Created: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 10:57 PM CST)
www.mnsun.com


Will Donovan III (left) has made the curbside air cleaner for his son, second-grader Thatcher Donovan, at Aquila Primary Center. Will Donovan led a campaign to retrofit buses to cut down on exhaust. (Craig Lassig/Sun Newspapers)

After becoming concerned about emissions from area industrial operations, St. Louis Park resident Will Donovan III became acutely aware of pollution right outside his son's school.Donovan educated himself on environmental health issues as a resident of the South Oak Hill Neighborhood south of Highway 7 and west of Louisiana Avenue. McGarvey Coffee and Northland Products are located near his home."We're an old industrial city," Donovan said. "We're breathing all that stuff in."While picking up his then kindergarten-age son from school in St. Louis Park, he perceived another potential health threat when he noticed buses idling outside the school."I walked by a kid sitting in the grass and a bus was sitting there and an exhaust pipe was practically blowing in their face," he said.He worried that bus exhaust could trigger an asthma attack in a child and also about potential long-term effects on children. He recalled smelling fumes inside his own school bus as a kid."It was just hell on the inside of that bus," he said of his childhood bus. "The fumes were just terrible."He later learned about Project Green Fleet, an initiative that funds bus retrofits designed to reduce diesel pollution substantially."I realized this was a win-win for everybody," he said.The St. Louis Park school district and St. Louis Park Transportation, a private company that operates school buses in the city, were both receptive to the idea, said Bill Droessler, director for Clean Air Minnesota, the non-profit that organized Project Green Fleet."I think it's a great thing for the environment, to try to do our part to cut down on diesel emissions," said Tom Burr, manager of St. Louis Park Transportation.His company will retrofit 20 buses built between 1996 and 2003 while two smaller bus companies that operate out of the same location will receive emissions filters for 11 additional buses.Like Burr, Superintendent Debra Bowers said she welcomed the changes."It's an effort to make our buses safer and cleaner for our community," she said at an Oct. 23 school board meeting.The retrofits should cut down emissions on the St. Louis Park buses by about 40-50 percent, Droessler said. The equipment is funded largely by donations from corporations and foundations. Bus companies are only responsible for the cost of replacing filters, an expense that Burr described as minimal.Project Green Fleet has funded retrofits in seven Minnesota districts, Droessler said."One of the unique things in St. Louis Park is it's the first one that's kind of been that grassroots of an action," he said.In other districts, the organization has contacted school districts directly or districts have come to them.The filters will bring the buses closer to new federal standards going into effect in 2007 for new diesel engines, Droessler said. In many states, government agencies have mandated that older buses receive the equipment. However, all retrofits in Minnesota are voluntary because the Twin Cities metro is one of the few metropolitan areas in the country that meets federal pollution standards.Nevertheless, the area is in danger of violating standards relating to ground level ozone and fine particulate matter, Droessler said. And while the emissions coming from diesel engines is not high as a percentage of pollution in the area, the fine particles from diesel engines can enter the people's lungs and bloodstream relatively easily - a fact that led to Clean Air Minnesota's emphasis on reducing diesel emissions. Studies have found that the amount of pollution inside buses can be as much as five times as high as in outside air, according to the Project Green Fleet Web site, www.projectgreenfleet.org.By the end of November, the St. Louis Park project should be complete, Droessler said. The work won't affect bus service, Burr said.Donovan said he is pleased that the school district agreed to support the project."I'm really glad they're doing this - it's a great thing," he said. "It's just incredible what we breathe that we don't realize we're breathing."