By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mike McCarthy keeps his four Fairview Elementary School children away from second-hand smoke because he knows it can hurt their lungs.

The 49-year-old Walnut Hills man also realizes exhaust from school buses, especially those that burn diesel fuel, can be an equal health risk for children.

As someone who was licensed to test and repair emissions systems on diesel-fueled vehicles, McCarthy knows that tiny particles of unburned formaldehyde, benzene, sulfur and various metals are found in diesel exhaust. When inhaled, those fine, unburned particles penetrate deep into the lungs. Numerous health studies have linked diesel emissions to cancer, asthma, irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, along with inflammation of the lungs.

That's why McCarthy applauds a $100,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant awarded to Hamilton County that will help pay for devices - called diesel oxidation catalysts - to clean the diesel exhaust in 20 Cincinnati Public Schools buses, beginning next year. The county is one of six communities nationwide to get such a grant.

The grant money also will pay for bio-diesel fuel for 70 buses. Bio-diesel contains a 20 percent mixture of cooking oil and burns cleaner than straight diesel.

Hamilton County's Department of Environmental Services will add $20,000 of its own cash to the grant money to pay for the program.

"We've got to start cleaning this stuff up," McCarthy said.

A recent University of California at Berkeley study found cancer-causing soot inside school buses to be 8.5 times higher than the average levels in California's smoggy air. One California study found that 23 to 46 children out of every million who ride a school bus every day will get cancer because of pollution in the exhaust.

The devices will be installed over the summer at a cost of about $1,700 apiece. The catalyst essentially burns up the fine particulate matter before it is released into the air. The device also uses a chemical process to convert carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons into less harmful gas, such as carbon dioxide.

The grant money will also be used to pay the incremental difference for using bio-diesel fuel, which costs about 25 cents per gallon more than diesel.

Glen Brand, Midwest representative for the Sierra Club, said children are especially vulnerable to lung disease caused by soot and diesel emissions because they breathe more rapidly than adults. "Kids are much more vulnerable, and that's why we need to move to protect them first," Brand said. "Dirty diesel is a real health threat. This is a good initial step toward cleaning up one source of pollution."

Ken Edgell, the department's administrative coordinator who wrote the grant proposal, said three things set his bid apart: Location, location and location.

"We chose to use an urban school district, where a lot of population would be involved," Edgell said. The EPA wants to eliminate all 400,000 diesel-fueled school buses in the nation by 2010.

Cory Chadwick, director of the department, said the grant is considered a pilot project. The county wants to test the performance of the buses with the catalysts and with the new fuel. If drivers and the school system are satisfied with how the catalysts perform, more grant money will be available to retrofit additional buses.

"It is the EPA's goal to retrofit or replace all 400,000 diesel school buses, so there will be monies available to do these things," Edgell said.

"The energy bill that is currently stalled in Congress has $300 million set aside for diesel retrofits."

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com