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One early January morning, Doug Havu, head mechanic for the Bonny Eagle School District, encountered every school official’s worst nightmare. It was the first day students were to return from Christmas break, and it was very cold. Not unusual for winters in Maine, but this morning saw temperatures fall as low as 32 degrees below 0. Their diesel buses would not start. Fuel filters had turned to gel, gas lines ruptured, and batteries died. Despite the district’s valiant effort to repair these engines quickly, the first day of school was cancelled.
“It was a horror show,” said Havu. “I remember being covered in diesel fuel from the tips of my fingers to my armpits and wearing that for the day,” he said, laughing as he recalled crawling under dozens of buses in the freezing cold. “The propane buses, it doesn’t matter what the temperature is. They start like you would start your automobile in the morning.”
The Bonny Eagle School District, or Maine Administrative School District #6, operates the largest public school bus fleet in the state of Maine. Serving the towns of Standish, Buxton, Hollis, Limington, and Frye Island, Bonny Eagle’s buses travel thousands of miles a day. Last year, their buses logged around 740,000 miles. Not only must these buses provide comfort and safety for students and staff, but they must do so in extreme weather conditions and under tight budgetary constraints. Switching to electric buses was not an option; long distance routes are a challenge for electric buses due to their range limitations, and Maine’s extremely cold temperatures exacerbate the problem. An alternative to their traditional diesel models seemed unlikely.
Bonny Eagle first became interested in propane buses after they purchased six buses in 2009 and four more in 2010 as part of a state-sponsored pilot program. Sarah Marean, Bonny Eagle’s Transportation Director, was a driver at the time and was one of the lucky few assigned these new buses for her route. The buses promised performance equivalent to diesel models but with lower fuel and maintenance expenses. “There were some challenges,” she said. Production on the engines stopped, partners went out of business, and it seemed that Bonny Eagle may have to put the brakes on propane buses.
But the staff of Bonny Eagle remained optimistic about propane’s viability, and a few of them were invited to Detroit for a tour of ROUSH CleanTech’s facilities. ROUSH would be supplying the fuel system for a new line of propane buses with Ford engines built by Blue Bird, a trusted name in school bus manufacturing for over 90 years. “It was extremely impressive,” recalled Havu. The trip convinced Bonny Eagle that propane buses were the wave of the future.
When Bonny Eagle resumed purchasing propane buses, there was some anxiety amongst the drivers, concerns about safety influenced by movies and television. However, not only are propane buses safe, but they’re also the most widely used alternative fuel for school buses. “I don’t think people realize how many safety devices there are with propane,” said Havu. “If something should happen… there [are] backup systems that can shut it off easily.” In addition to the training drivers received, actual hands-on experience assuaged all apprehension. “They’re extremely quiet. The throttle response is phenomenal. Much better than gasoline and drastically better than diesel.” According to Marean, the quietness of the propane buses is an important safety feature. “You hear your students better. You’re more aware of things on the road that might be drowned out by the rumbling of a diesel engine.” Clay Gleason, Bonny Eagle’s superintendent, added, “…their neurological system is more calmed by a quieter ride.” Students arrive at school ready to learn.
And, most importantly for Bonny Eagle, propane buses start in cold weather. Unlike diesel, propane doesn’t require additives to work in the cold and drivers don’t need to plug in block heaters to warm bus cabins during winter. Many drivers at Bonny Eagle “park out”, meaning they park their buses at home rather than at a central dispatch given the vast area they cover. During her years as a driver, Marean had to keep a window in her house open to run an extension cord for the block heaters. If anything happened to that plug, whether the circuit breaker kicked or someone tripped over the cord, everyone was delayed. “All of that went away [with propane],” said Marean. “The soot on the side of my house went away because the propane buses don’t emit soot out the tailpipe like diesels do. The smell is a drastic difference as well. I don’t get complaints from teachers that… fumes are coming through the window.”
Because propane is a cleaner fuel that emits fewer harmful emissions than diesel, Bonny Eagle took advantage of DERA grants, VW settlement funds, and other resources available to schools looking to replace their older diesel models with more environmentally friendly alternatives, like propane. “I feel a lot better putting kids on buses where they’re not breathing in particulate exhaust,” said Superintendent Gleason. “Compared to diesel, it is a better quality of life for our students.”
Bonny Eagle rests within the Sebago Lake watershed area, a crucial source of drinking water for the greater region; particulates emitted into the atmosphere inevitably cycle through Sebago. Propane buses produce up to 96% fewer toxic emissions than diesel buses, allowing Bonny Eagle to protect their sensitive watershed environment and preserve their tight-knit community. “It’s a family community and a lot of us have deep roots,” said Marean, who has lived in the area all her life and is a graduate of Bonny Eagle High School. “Maintaining that is important. Carrying that legacy forward is important.”
From a maintenance perspective, the transition meant little difference in day-to-day operations for Havu. A propane engine is essentially a gasoline engine with a different fuel source, meaning Havu and his team needed only a little additional training to service them. And repairs to propane engines are often cheaper because they don’t require the same expensive, hard-to-find emission controls used in diesel engines. “It wasn’t a big jump,” said Havu.
Bonny Eagle is now fully invested in propane. Last year, the district completed an expansion to their propane refill station. Not only is their refill station the largest in the state, but it also received the first delivery of renewable propane in Maine’s history. This renewable propane, supplied by PitStop Propane and Fuels, even further reduces emissions and fuels their school buses without any sacrifices to performance or reliability. “We haven’t noticed any difference,” said Marean. “If someone hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known.”
In Maine, diesel fuel hovers around $4.00 a gallon. Bonny Eagle currently pays $1.36 a gallon to refill their fueling station. For a school district of 750 employees serving over 3000 students, every penny counts. “We’ve been able to pretty much replace almost our entire diesel fleet with propane,” said Marean. “No diesel buses run daily on a daily route anymore.”
Because of their highly successful transition to propane buses, Bonny Eagle invited neighboring districts to tour their facilities, hoping to encourage wider adoption. “There’s definitely a lot more interest as we go around and meet with people from districts near us,” said Havu. “There [are] more and more people that are very interested in switching.”
Last year, Gleason participated in a panel at STN Expo Reno to share Bonny Eagle’s story with other school officials. Given the obvious advantages of propane buses and his district’s successful transition to them, Gleason was surprised at how many transportation officials hadn’t considered them an option. While other school districts explore how propane can meet their needs, Bonny Eagle is doubling down. The school district has begun looking into other ways propane can improve efficiency and reduce costs of their operation. Most recently, they’ve ordered a propane-powered commercial mower to see how well it performs cutting their expansive grounds and sports fields. They hope as they continue to share their story, more and more school districts will follow suit. “We’re 14 years into this journey and there’s no going back for us,” said Gleason. “We’re in Maine… and somehow we’re on the cutting edge.” Marean recalled an old maxim, “as Maine goes, so goes the nation.”
Learn more about propane-powered school buses.
