Yellow Menaces

Of course S.C. school buses are worst polluters nationally

A hearty "well duh" to the Union of Concerned Scientists' finding this week that S.C. school buses release more pollutants than any other school bus fleet in the nation. Of course they do, considering that the average S.C. school bus has been on the road 14 years and that 641 school buses statewide are more than 20 years old.

The Union's estimate that the typical S.C. school bus spews 24.5 pounds of soot and 531 pounds of smog-forming pollutants into the atmosphere every year comes as no surprise. Nor is it surprising that the nation's best average school bus releases three times less soot than the average S.C. bus, according to the Union study.

How can it be otherwise when S.C. legislators devote only a pittance to maintaining and modernizing the school bus fleet. In Horry and Georgetown counties, only the wizardry of school district mechanics ensures that youngsters get delivered to school in timely fashion. These masters of the wrench routinely cannibalize worn out spare buses for parts needed to keep "working" buses on the road. But no amount of mechanical wizardry can clear up the tailpipe emissions from gasoline and diesel engines that have been run for hundreds of thousands of miles.

The root problem: Buying school buses is a state responsibility - and not one legislators take seriously. The only permanent source of funding for new school buses is unclaimed prizes from the S.C. Education Lottery - a source so small it's virtually meaningless. Most years, legislators throw a little extra money into that pot, allowing the very oldest buses to take their rightful place in S.C. junk yards - unless, of course, they have spare-parts value.

A bill before the General Assembly this year calls for replacing one-twelfth of the school bus fleet each year so that eventually, S.C. school buses would be no older than 12. Naturally, legislators have not yet passed it - and the 2006 session ends next week.

If legislators aren't willing to get on top of this problem themselves, they should consider pushing it downhill - to school districts. In every state, legislatures provide school districts with transportation money and require local school boards to buy or lease buses and maintain them. In most other states, local school boards devote part of their mill levies to transportation.

To be sure, such reform would be controversial. Most S.C. local school boards like it just fine that busing is a state responsibility, and aren't eager to raise their mill levies to buy and maintain buses themselves. The S.C. Department of Education, which buys buses with the little money that legislators provide, also isn't eager to give up the program and shrink its bureaucracy accordingly.

But success in getting the state out of the school bus business would boost chances that youngsters ride to school in clear, safe, modern buses. It shouldn't take humiliation by the Union of Concerned Scientists to motivate us, at long last, to tackle and fix this problem.