Through a more than $400,000 grant, the San Benito High School
District is now traveling clean and conservative.
Through a more than $400,000 grant, the San Benito High School District is now traveling clean and conservative.
On Wednesday, district staff unveiled a compressed natural gas station to replace diesel fuel that allows school buses and other county vehicle to fill up on the cleaner-burning fuel
“It’s cleaner air and really good on engines,” said Gary Goularte, SBHS transportation supervisor. “It’s so clean, the engines are easier to maintain and they last longer. Financially, there was no cost to the district.”
San Benito County – and then SBHS – received the grant from the Monterey Bay United Air Pollution Control District to install the CNG station. Other school districts in the county have CNG buses and county agencies have CNG vehicles that will take advantage of the station, Goularte said.
Also, two Aromas-San Juan Unified School District buses will use the station every day.
SBHS has four CNG buses paid for by grants from the Monterey Bay United Air Pollution Control District. The buses cost about $130,000 each – $30,000 more than diesel buses, said David Fairchild, an air quality planner with the Monterey Bay United Air Pollution Control District.
SBHS buses about 200 SBHS students daily on its eight buses, with four still being diesel, the oldest a 1991 model.
The advantages of CNG over diesel is more than just economics, its safer for the students.
CNG is a clean, alternative fuel especially for fleet use where vehicles travel specified routes, according to the California Energy Commission. CNG school buses can reduce toxic soot 90 percent compared to today’s diesel-powered buses and 98 percent compared to older diesel buses, according to Environmental Media Services.
“Environmentally, (diesel vehicles and buses) are putting a lot of fumes in the air. A lot of them are carcinogenic,” Goularte said. “Economically, if we are able to get brand new school buses for our needs through the air board, it’s great.”
While diesel is liquid, CNG is in a gaseous form. Buses and vehicles are able to fill up on the gas because the system measures pressure and fills up accordingly. Because there are so many safety mechanisms and alarms, the CNG buses and fueling stations are just as safe as diesel, Goularte said.
Also, the cost of CNG and diesel are about the same, Goularte said. But, there are times when CNG prices increase, so Goularte said he parks CNG buses until the prices drop back down.
Opponents of CNG argue its global warming and environmental impacts of extracting and transporting natural gas, according to Environmental Media Services. Natural gas is a non-renewable fossil fuel, just like petroleum and coal, so, it too contributes to global warming and will some day be used up unless people utilize multiple alternative fuel sources, according to the State Environmental Resource Center.
The more than $920,000 in grants for the CNG buses and station San Benito County received comes from fees paid by gross pollutant companies to the air district, so grant money does not come from taxpayers, Goularte said.
“They (the Monterey Bay United Air Pollution Control District) want to get pollution out of the air and we want to get new buses and get pollution out of the air,” Goularte said.
Many people are also concerned about the affects of the pollution on the students who ride the buses and go to school where the buses drop students off.
To secure the $400,000 grant, the CNG station had to be available to community fleets and have fast-fill capacity. Normally, SBHS buses are time-filled, which takes all night. With fast-fill, a school bus can fill up on CNG in under 12 minutes, Goularte said. Fast-fill uses pressure to speed up the process so more vehicles can use the station. The SBHS also has two diesel pumps.
To receive the CNG bus grants, SBHS had to destroy its old diesel buses.
