| Success
Story Number |
1 |
| Location |
Ambler,
Montgomery County, PA |
| Fleet
Makeup |
75
school buses |
| PDD
Recognition Status |
Platinum
(awarded May 24, 2004) |
| Clean
Diesel Project Category |
AFTER-TREATMENT
RETROFIT DEVICE/
CLEAN FUEL |
| Project
Description |
Total
of 45 school buses retrofitted - 31 buses with DPFs and 14 with DOCs (both
provided by Lubrizol/Engine Control Systems, headquartered in Wickliffe,
OH). All buses in the fleet run on ULSD (provided by Sprague Energy of
White Plans, NY). |
| Background |
Wissahickon
School District, is located in Montgomery County, approximately 25 miles
north of Philadelphia. Serving 23 square miles, the school district educates
4,600 students in seven public schools. The 75 school buses that make
up the fleet log 900,000 miles a year. In August of 2002, Wissahickon
was awarded $250,000 from the PA DEP in partnership with U.S. EPA and
3M Corporation to pay for the diesel pollution control devices and ULSD
as a pilot project. As a result, Wissahickon became the first retrofitted
school bus fleet in Pennsylvania. The goal of the project was to determine
the effectiveness of using retrofit equipment and ULSD in a suburban school
bus fleet. The age of each bus determined whether a DOC or a DPF was employed.
"We've always been very environmentally minded here at the School
District," explains Assistant Business Administrator Perry Baer.
"Here was an opportunity for us to clean up our bus fleet with some
outside resources." On April 7, 2003, then EPA Administrator Christine
Todd Whitman launched the agency's Clean School Bus USA Program at the
Wissahickon High School. Additionally, PA DEP has produced and distributed
a video encouraging diesel retrofits for school buses. It prominently
features the Wissahickon school bus fleet. |
| Update |
Wissahickon School District was able to purchase a cleaning station to clean the diesel particulate filters on the bus fleet. They are now able to include this in the regular maintenance of the bus fleet. In 2004, Perry Baer joined with 6 other local school districts using ULSD to form a consortium. The consortium was able to lock in at a low fixed price for purchasing ULSD for the 2005-06 school year. |
| Contact |
Perry
Baer, Assistant Business Administrator |
| Web
Link |
wsdweb.org |
| More
Information |
|
