Sangre de Cristo Schools to get electric school buses

SANGRE de Cristo Schools is among the Colorado school districts that will purchase electric school buses through Environmental Protection Agency funding.

(Read the EPA release here.) 

The EPA announced funding for four rural Colorado school districts to purchase electric school buses, including Sangre de Cristo, Big Sandy, Grand East, and Primero Reorganized School District. Leaders of Colorado nonprofits advocating for clean air, environmental justice, a stable climate, children’s health and for energy efficiency celebrated the announcement as a great start for a healthy transition.

“The air on a diesel school bus is up to 10 times more polluted than ambient air due to the emissions from the bus,” said Jen Clanahan, state director of Colorado Mountain Mamas. “As moms, we want our children to breathe clean, healthy air rather than be subjected to that kind of pollution every day. Diesel buses threaten the health of the children that ride the bus, the children on the playground playing next to idling buses, and the neighborhoods the buses drive through. Air pollution harms everyone’s health but children are most susceptible to the damage it does. We are thrilled that the EPA is helping schools transition to clean, electric school buses so that we can protect Colorado’s kids and we encourage every district to make the switch.” 

Juan Roberto Madrid of GreenLatinos Colorado Clean Transportation said, “We know that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to climate change and poor air quality in the Denver metropolitan area as well as across other population centers of Colorado and the impacts are even more pronounced in our disproportionately impacted communities where black and brown people suffer more cases of respiratory disease than other communities. We are pleased that the EPA is helping schools in Colorado transition to electric school buses so that our children and our communities can breathe cleaner air.”