Contact: Katie Walter: tictac233@aol.com

Press release

SLAP NOW! BEGINS NOW

White Plains, NY, Wednesday, March 2, 2005: High school students from across Westchester County gathered today, in front of the County Michaelian Office Building to introduce SLAP NOW! (Students for Less Air Pollution NOW!). This initiative is sponsored by members of the Westchester Environmental Student Council (WESC), a program of the umbrella environmental group the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County (FCWC).

The students are dedicating themselves to pressing for the reduction of air pollution in their region, starting at the most natural place for high school students; the schools. The program will focus on ending the unnecessary idling of all school buses, delivery trucks and passenger vehicles on school grounds, as well as working towards the retrofitting and retirement of older school buses, and finally the conversion to ultra low sulfur diesel fuel for school bus fleets throughout the county. This initiative was sparked by information students learned from The Healthy Air Action Plan for Westchester County, a report composed by the Healthy Air Task Force, commissioned by the County Legislature, and released last month (See www. alanys.org for this report, and a more recent E.P.A. backed report on the health dangers of diesel fuel, with local data).

Everyone has a vague sense of the environmental and health risks which accompany air pollution, but recently, studies from the American Academy of Pediatrics as well as from Columbia University have confirmed the link between air pollution and children’s health. Further, Westchester County is ranked in the 90th percentile for being one of the worst counties in the United States for fine particulate matter and for the abundance of nitrogen oxides in the air (Environmental Defense Scorecard). Students hope to confront this issue by informing their school communities of the potential risks which children, who are so vulnerable to air pollution, are being exposed to on their journey to and from school each day.

SLAP NOW! will begin in at least six Westchester school districts (Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, Katonah-Lewisboro, Hastings-on-Hudson and Harrison). Students will organize meetings with school officials to advocate for formal policies to prevent needless idling and to ensure that school buses are being modernized and eventually converted to using ultra low sulfur diesel fuel. The press conference marks the beginning of a student-driven campaign which will hopefully spread to other school districts in Westchester, and on to other school districts in the state. Air pollution is a tangible problem, with known sources. Community support and continued press attention will speed the process towards reduction of particulate matter and improvement in the health of Westchester’s children.