The S.C. public school transportation system should have enough fuel to keep buses rolling despite threats to the petroleum industry in Texas posed by Hurricane Rita, state Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum said Thursday.

“We’re in good shape. We have an adequate supply from (Amerada) Hess. It’s something we’re watching daily.”

The state Department of Education arranged to make emergency purchases of diesel fuel from New York-based energy company Amerada Hess when Hurricane Katrina decommissioned an overland supply line from the Gulf Coast region. Hess said it could ship 75,000 gallons of fuel a day by barge through Charleston to keep the state’s 5,000 buses supplied.

Prior to that stopgap arrangement struck Sept. 7, fuel supplies in South Carolina were so low that administrators expressed concern about how 330,000 children would get to school.

South Carolina is the only state in which public school buses are owned, operated and maintained by state government. The 85 local school systems rely on Tenenbaum’s agency to provide the vehicles and keep them fueled and on the road.

Columbia-area school systems decided during the post-Katrina fuel crisis to scale back or eliminate nonessential travel that does not affect education. Some of those restrictions have been lifted, but many remain in place.

“I think we learned a lesson from Katrina that we need to do everything we can to conserve” fuel, said Buddy Price, chief spokesman for the Irmo-Chapin area public school system.

His counterpart in Lexington 1, Mary Beth Hill, concurred.

“We take our lead (on whether to take conservation steps) from the state Department (of Education),” Hill said. “Right now, we haven’t heard anything that would change what we’re currently doing.”

For example, few, if any, field trips are taking place:

• In the Batesburg-Leesville area, Lexington 3 superintendent Bill Gummerson said, “We are still hoping to reinstate field trips after Monday, if the new hurricane does not disrupt fuel supplies.”

Marching band travel will resume after next week, he added. Athletics travel has been normal.

• Lexington 2 spokeswoman Venus Holland said Cayce-West Columbia schools “had planned to restore field trips effective” today. “We were also planning to restore bus service for our marching band and cheerleaders to athletic events” today.

• Spokesman Ken Blackstone said Richland 2 continues following conservation guidelines developed earlier this month in Katrina’s aftermath and was unsure Thursday when those guidelines might be relaxed.

• Richland 1 spokeswoman Karen York said some transportation service for after-school activities was restored when the fuel crisis abated, but if another shortage occurs, “We might have to look at some fuel conservation measures that had been put into place before in terms of restricting use of buses for field trips and other activities.”

With the negotiated price of fuel 51 cents a gallon higher than the cost projected when the current budget was drafted, Tenenbaum said her agency is facing a $4 million deficit. She said she has alerted Gov. Mark Sanford and leaders in the Legislature about the potential money woes.

“I feel certain we’ll be able to work things out” when the Legislature returns in January, she said. “We don’t have much choice.”

Lexington 3’s Gummerson said, “If the fuel is disrupted again, we have a possible supplier besides the state Department of Education. At some point, schools may not be able, or willing, to pay for gas that is available if the cost become extraordinary.”

Reach Robinson at (803) 771-8482 or brobinson@thestate.com.