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Two Colorado school districts receive EPA grant for cleaner school buses

Release Date: 02/22/2006
Contact Information: Kerri Fiedler, (303) 312-6493, fiedler.kerri@epa.gov Jeffrey Kimes, (303) 312-6445, kimes.jeffrey@epa.gov

(Denver, Colo. -- Feb. 22, 2006) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will provide more than $310,000 in grants to Denver's Cherry Creek School District and the Huerfano School District in Walsenburg.

The grants, announced this week, are among 37 grants totaling $7.5 million that EPA is providing to communities around the country to reduce kids’ exposure to harmful exhaust from their school buses. The grants will help fund the cleanup of more than 500 tons of diesel emissions from 4000 school buses nationwide.

Cherry Creek Schools will receive $253,750 which they plan to use to help them replace fourteen 1987 school buses with newer, lower emissions buses. Huerfano School District will receive $57,520, which will be used to help replace two buses purchased in the 1980s with clean diesel buses.

“These clean school bus grants mean that the only thing pouring out of school buses will be students – not diesel emissions,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “President Bush and EPA are committed to making that black puff of diesel smoke from school buses something you only read about in history books.”

EPA's Clean School Bus USA program has been helping communities reduce children's exposure to diesel exhaust since 2003. The initiative encourages policies and practices to eliminate unnecessary school bus idling, the installation of effective emission control systems on newer buses and the replacement of the oldest buses with cleaner diesel or compressed natural gas powered buses. The grant recipients are contributing an additional $13 million in matching funds and in-kind services.

For more information about the list of grantees visit: https://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/funding.htm

For more information about Clean School Bus USA visit:
https://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus