Yonkers Public Schools Students Celebrate New Bus Exhaust Filters

  Published on January 27th, 2010

Ernie Garcia
elgarcia@lohud.com

YONKERS — Students at the Foxfire School celebrated new pollution control devices on 124 of the city’s school buses this morning.

The exhaust filters installed on buses owned by private companies under contract with the Yonkers Public Schools are expected to remove tons of toxic emissions from the city’s air, including 620,000 pounds of cobalt and 25,200 pounds of hydrocarbons.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency gave the Yonkers Green Policy Task Force and the Yonkers Public Schools a $300,000 grant to install the filters and 188 anti-idling signs by bus loops at all the city’s public schools.

Schools Superintendent Bernard Pierorazio said that the district worked with the private bus companies to install to the filters.

“The reason they did that, children, was so that … the air that you breathe when your on the buses, would be clean,” Pierorazio told the students at the event.

The Yonkers Public Schools spends about $37 million a year on school transportation for about 750 runs daily to 39 public schools and 22 non-public schools.

After the adults spoke, children took the podium to discuss their efforts to conserve energy and recycle. The conservation message extends beyond the classroom, said Claribel Valdez, 9, a fourth grader.

“When I see cans on the floor I pick them up and put them in the recycling bin,” said Valdez of her efforts to clean up around on the street in front of her house.

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