Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit this week in San Francisco, claiming some school buses fill with cancer-causing levels of diesel exhaust fumes.
The legal action -- brought by the Environmental Law Foundation and the Children's Earth Foundation -- says the atmosphere inside some school buses is up to 10 times as sooty as the air outside the vehicles.
The lawsuit was filed against Laidlaw Transit Inc., North America's largest private school bus operator, with a fleet of 40,000 buses, the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune reported. The suit claims California children riding Laidlaw buses are exposed to cancer-causing diesel engine exhaust without being given a required state warning.
The suit seeks a court order requiring Laidlaw to post warnings in its California buses before the next school year begins, the newspaper said.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
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