Photo: Oliver Foerstner via Shutterstock
February 19, 2021 (BOSTON, MA) – School buses owned by All-Star Transportation have been polluting Connecticut neighborhoods with harmful tailpipe emissions in violation of the Clean Air Act. Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has filed a lawsuit against All-Star Transportation and its parent company, Student Transportation of America, to put an end to the unlawful, excessive idling that is causing the pollution.
“A company responsible for transporting children safely cannot be allowed to ignore the law,” said Heather Govern, Director of CLF’s Clean Air and Water program. “ All-Star and STA must stop violating anti-idling laws and exposing the public to dangerous levels of tailpipe exhaust. All Connecticut residents have a right to clean air.”
All-Star serves 35 towns and cities in Connecticut. CLF investigators observed the company’s buses idling for extended periods, in violation of federal and state law, on more than eighty occasions. The violations occurred in bus lots in Waterbury, New Milford, Brookfield, and Seymour.
Idling vehicles release harmful exhaust filled with particulate matter and toxins. As the vehicles idle, these pollutants accumulate in the surrounding air. When inhaled, this pollution can cause lung damage, aggravate conditions like asthma and bronchitis, and has been linked to decreased cognitive ability, increased incidence of heart disease, multiple kinds of cancer, premature death, and greater risk of mortality from COVID-19. Children are particularly susceptible to these harms.
You can find the complaint CLF filed in this lawsuit here.
This is the latest lawsuit in CLF’s anti-idling campaign. Previous cases against several transportation companies in Connecticut and Massachusetts were filed in 2020 and 2019.
CLF experts are available for further comment.
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