News Releases
For Immediate Release: August 3, 2007
Media Contacts:
Kelli Johnson
512-476-4368, ext. 310 or 512-784-8507 (cell)
kjohnson@enviromedia.com
Hazel Barbour
Clean School Bus Program of Central Texas
512-236-8498
hazel@cleanairforce.org
www.cleanschoolbus.net
EnviroMedia Social Marketing Helps Dripping Springs ISD Take Bold Step to Counter Air Pollutants from School Bus
(DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas) – Dripping Springs school kids will breathe cleaner air when they return to school this fall thanks to a donation from Austin-based EnviroMedia Social Marketing to the Clean School Bus Program of Central Texas.
The $5,000 donation enables Dripping Springs Independent School District to install new technology to reduce pollutants from one of its older diesel-powered school buses.
Pollutants in diesel exhaust are known to cause or exacerbate asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Asthma is the number-one reason children are absent from school in Central Texas and the number-one reason children are admitted to the hospital.
Hazel Barbour, manager of the Clean School Bus Program, said that young people are particularly at-risk from air pollutants, as they breathe at twice the rate of adults.
“We were particularly pleased when EnviroMedia indicated they would like their donation to go to Dripping Springs ISD,” Barbour said. “We have been working with the district for a while to find ways to help this school district clean up and improve emissions from their school bus fleet.”
“We're happy to work with the Clean School Bus Program. This joint venture gives us the opportunity to have cleaner emissions for our buses,” said Dr. Mard A. Herrick, superintendent of Dripping Springs Independent School District. “We are so very excited that EnviroMedia has been able to put this donation toward our school district.”
DSISD will be the first Central Texas school district to install a Flow-through Diesel Multi-stage filter along with a closed crankcase filtration system. The equipment will be installed over the summer on a Model Year 2002 72-passenger Freightliner bus.
Emissions of particulate matter in the bus’s exhaust will be reduced by more than 50 percent, and pollutants entering the passenger cabin from the crankcase reduced by 100 percent. Although this bus is only five years old, the federal emission standard for particulate matter is now ten times more stringent than this bus was required to meet at its time of manufacture.
“Many of the larger school districts were first in line to receive funding for retrofitting their bus fleets,” said Kevin Tuerff, president of EnviroMedia Social Marketing. “We wanted to help one of the smaller, more rural school districts make the necessary improvements to reduce the amount of pollution that our kids are exposed to.”
Precinct 4 Hays County Commissioner Karen Ford agrees. “It's a start,” said Ford, “and a wonderful example of private giving in the public interest. I hope that by increasing awareness of this crucial issue, these improvements can be expanded to the district’s entire bus fleet, as well as to other school bus fleets throughout our county.” Commissioner Ford is a member of the Clean Air Coalition of Central Texas and a former employee of EnviroMedia Social Marketing.
The Clean School Bus Program of Central Texas is a partnership program of the CLEAN AIR FORCE of Central Texas and Capital Area Council of Governments.
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