LA Schools Get Clean School Buses

Belching diesel school buses may finally become a thing of the past.

This month the South Coast Air Quality Management District handed out almost $43 million in grants to school districts to buy natural gas and propane burning school buses. The new buses will replace the districts' oldest, worst-polluting diesel buses, according to the Los Angeles Times.

LA will get 260 new buses, at a cost of about $37 million. This is in addition to 77 propane fueled buses that were introduced in the LA Unified District by Student Transportation of America (STA) earlier this month with plans for purchase of an additional 90 buses.

AQMD, the pollution control agency for urban Los Angeles, as well as Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, also issued over $3 million to school districts for the installation of particulate matter trapping devices in 176 newer diesel school buses.

Ted Olsen of Delta Liquid Energy, which provided the fueling station for the 77 new Blue Bird buses, is optimistic the majority of school children statewide will be riding to school in clean buses soon.