SOUNDING THE SMOG HORN OLD, SOOTY BUSES STILL THREATENING KIDS' HEALTH.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Despite a year-old effort to get rid of its exhaust-belching buses, Los Angeles Unified still has 1,200 old buses on the road that emit more diesel soot and put children's health at risk, officials said.

The problem is one facing school districts across Southern California, where exhaust from the familiar yellow buses contributes to smog and unhealthy ultrafine particulate matter. A recent UCLA study found that youngsters who ride old, smoky buses are exposed to 70 percent more unhealthy diesel soot than those who ride in passenger cars.

But buses are expensive - from $65,000 to $135,000 each - and the cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified School District doesn't have money in its general fund to replace its buses. Officials rely on grants for the purchases, but are looking for other options, including charging various programs a fee for the use of the vehicles.

``I drive downtown every day, and you can't help but notice the black smoke fumes,'' said school board member Marlene Canter. ``Money is tight, but you can't sacrifice the health of our kids.''

Canter last year spearheaded the Health Breathing Initiative, which requires private contractors to provide buses manufactured in 1994 or later, or to install particulate traps on older-model vehicles.

And, beginning in fall 2006, contractors will have to provide buses that meet 2004 emission standards, having 76 percent less smog-forming pollution and 99 percent less particulate matter than buses built in the 1980s.

The requirements have bumped up the cost of school bus contracts by 10 percent.

The district's buses are an average of 15 years old - too old to be modified with pollution-control equipment that can cut toxic diesel particles by 99 percent, officials said.

But with no money allocated in its general fund to replace the buses, the district is vying with other districts for grant money.

Last week, the district received funding to buy five compressed natural gas buses for $25,000 each, with the South Coast Air Quality Management District kicking in $110,000 toward the cost of each vehicle.

The LAUSD could have bought as many as 17 buses under the one-time grant program, but didn't have the money to match the grant.

Those grants are among the $55 million that has been doled out to school districts over the past four years to buy low-pollution, alternative-fuel buses and particulate-matter traps.

However, environmentalists said they lost an important tool to clean up buses earlier this year, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the South Coast Air Quality Management District rule requiring district and private contractors to buy only alternative-fuel buses when funding is available.

California is considering asking the federal government for a special exemption so Southern California can reinstate the alternative-fuel school bus rule.

``We need to make sure the fleet rule stays in place,'' said Julie Masters, senior project attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

``Our recommendation has always been that for all new buses, the cleanest choice out there is natural gas. It's the cleanest, the least toxic choice that's going to be the best for our children.''

Money is the biggest hurdle. Unlike transit buses, in which the federal government pays 80 percent of the cost, school districts buy their own buses. The LAUSD has little money of its own to buy new buses, which run $65,000 for a new diesel bus to $135,000 for a new natural gas bus.

To create a new permanent source of money for new buses, Antonio Rodriguez, director of the LAUSD's transportation branch, has proposed charging a small, several-dollar internal fee to specific district programs, such as special education, for their bus trips.

The money would go into a fund to replace 900 of the oldest, dirtiest buses in 15 years at a cost of $98 million.

In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a bill by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, D-South Gate, this year that allows regions to tack on an extra $2 motor vehicle registration fee beginning in April to fund replacement of old heavy-duty diesel equipment.

Most people know intuitively the black cloud left by an old diesel school bus is unhealthy. Researchers, however, have sought to understand the seriousness of the problem by driving school buses along LAUSD school bus routes and measuring the pollution inside the cab.

In a study released last October, University of California researchers found children riding in the oldest, smokiest buses were exposed to up to 70 percent more black carbon than children riding in a passenger car. The exposure in an average diesel bus was 34 percent higher than in a passenger car. Black carbon is used as an indicator of diesel particulate matter, which can worsen or trigger asthma attacks, as well as raise the risk of developing cancer.

Researchers and educators were troubled to see buses appeared to be leaking exhaust into the cab, giving students a potent punch of toxic diesel emissions on the oldest, dirtiest buses.

Those UCLA and UC Riverside researchers last week began part two of their school bus studies and will drive buses on Los Angeles highways and streets to investigate how exhaust ends up in bus cabs.

``School buses do not seem as well built to us as a transit bus, and that's kind of ironic because it's our children on our buses,'' said Arthur M. Winer, a UCLA professor of environmental health sciences who worked on the school bus research. ``I'm really appalled that school districts across Southern California, even in affluent communities, have a certain fraction of polluting school buses.''

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Canoga Park High School students, above, get ready to board school buses in the afternoon. At left, kids wait on a bus. The district has 1,200 outdated vehicles that emit dangerous levels of diesel soot, some of which reaches the students inside.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

(3 -- color) no caption (school bus)

Box:

Cleaner buses on the way

SOURCE: South Coast Air Quality Management District

Warren Huskey/Staff Artist