Two new low-emission school buses are on the way to Chatham after Gov. Roy Cooper approved state funding for bus replacement on Monday.
Chatham will receive the buses under the North Carolina School Bus Program, which intends to replace the engines on school buses to reduce emissions. The buses can be used for transporting students to and from school, or for school-related activities such as athletics or field trips.
“This diesel is the cleanest running internal combustion engine on the market today,” said Chris Blice, Chatham County Schools chief operations officer. “And unless we learn about restrictions we did not know about, these buses will be manufactured for us right here in N.C.”
Blice said the buses will likely be manufactured in High Point by Thomas Built Buses. These buses will be used to replace older buses running on low-efficiency fuel. Under N.C. Dept. of Public Instruction (NCDPI) mandates buses are required to run 20 years or 250,000 miles because of the large expense.
A new activity bus sells today for $110,000 and a new school bus for $125,000, according to Blice. New buses are a substantial and long-lasting investment of funds.
The first of the new buses for CCS will reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by 21.6% over its lifetime at a cost of $105,750. The second will reduce emissions by 58.1% at a cost of $123,885.
NOx leads to the formation of ground-level ozone, which in turn aggravates asthma and can cause breathing trouble in young children and older adults. The small particles that make up particulate matter are linked to heart and lung conditions. Across the state, the new buses will reduce lifetime NOx by 126 tons.
“Switching to new low- and zero-emission school buses has immediate public health benefits for the children who ride them and improves air quality in our communities,” said N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser.
In CCS, Blice said the district isn’t opposed to electric buses in the future, but at the moment it isn’t financially feasible. The districts who are moving to electric buses are typically located in metropolitan areas because they have shorter routes and central parking areas.
Rural areas like CCS are too spread out for the electric buses to be viable, according to Blice. The cost of electric buses is also much more expensive, with most costing three times more than a diesel bus.
Chatham mechanics employed and utilized by the district are also not trained to maintain the different equipment. Blice said making the transition would require substantial training, which is another big cost.
A current bus in CCS also parks at its given school because of the spread-out nature of the district. Switching to electric would mean installing individual charging stations at each school.
“The current electric bus models will need to have their batteries replaced multiple times during their life requirement,” Blice said. Each time the battery is replaced, it costs an estimated $100,000 so over the lifetime of the bus — 20 years or 250,000 miles — the district would spend upward of $500,000 per electric bus.
Blice said the district could use that money to buy five diesel buses instead.
“In short, it is not a fiscally sound idea to make this move until the bus/battery situation changes, and/or the Chatham County logistics change," he said.
He said the district is open to switching to electric, but in the current state of play isn’t viable. CCS will continue to purchase new buses with cleaner and more efficient engines as funding allows, Blice said.
The money for the new buses comes from the N.C. Volkswagen Settlement Program, which will be distributed by the NCDEQ to fund 161 new school buses across the state, with the majority of the funding going toward 43 new electric school buses. The program approves more than $30 million statewide.
"Today is a good day for the health and pocketbooks of North Carolinians as we continue on our path to clean transportation," Gov. Cooper said. "Transitioning to cleaner school buses reduces greenhouse gas emissions, lowers costs to our schools, creates great manufacturing jobs and reduces pollution in our poorer communities."
The grant recipients include public schools, charter schools and a tribal school in 84 counties. One hundred thirty of the buses will be placed in rural counties. Of those, 80 school buses were awarded to schools in historically under-resourced counties DEQ targeted for additional outreach and support during the application process. The full list of awarded projects is on DEQ’s website.
Reporter Ben Rappaport can be reached at brappaport@chathamnr.com or on Twitter @b_rappaport.