One county in the east is breathing easier thanks to a new technology in old school buses.
Thanks to grants from the National Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Pitt County Schools are upgrading their existing fleet of buses with a more environmentally friendly addition to the exhaust system.
This week mechanics installed a diesel multi-stage filter. Simply put, it's a more emission friendly muffler.
10 Pitt County buses have been fitted with these new bolt-ons, which reduce exhaust emissions by 50 percent.
The DMF filters are part of a five hundred thousand dollar grant which will allow more than 90 buses in Pitt, Edgecombe, Nash and Wilson counties to be retrofitted with these upgrades.
New standards in 2004 started regulating emissions on buses. John Calcagni with the EPA says this change helps meet those standards. "A bus lasts 15 years so we're using buses now that go back to 1995 and the counties are working towards meeting those standards part way. We don't want to be waiting for 15 years to improve the air quality on these buses,” he said.
20 other school buses in Pitt County have been fitted with another emissions saving feature that cut pollutants by 25 percent.
The grant money will also allow these counties to replace older buses all together.
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