Emissions from diesel engines – including those from Athens Transit and University buses – are causing the threat of contracting soot-related cancer in Athens to soar.

The risk to Athens’ residents is one in 3,876 people – 258 times greater than the Environmental Protection Agency’s acceptable level of one in a million.

“That is near non-attainment status,” said Daniel Geller, public service assistant in the University’s engineering department. He explained that if Athens reaches non-attainment level, the pollution problem cannot be fixed.

Geller and Ryan Adolphson, administrative director in the engineering department, applied for and received $1.73 million in federal stimulus grant money to retrofit 253 vehicles with specialized filters to reduce the risk.

“This grant is going to have a substantial impact,” Adolphson said.

The grant covers diesel-emitting vehicles in Washington County, Athens-Clarke County and the University. Geller said the project should be complete by October 2010.

He described the filters as metal traps – emissions particulates will pass through, stick on the metal and burn into carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

“The particulates disintegrate before they can get out,” he said.

Geller said since he does not know the manufacturer yet, he is unsure of what specific metal will be on the chosen filters.

Ron Hamlin, manager of University Transit, said the filters will be put on 34 University buses that were manufactured during or before 2006.

“All the buses being retrofitted don’t meet the current EPA standards for particulate emissions,” he said.

Dick Field, environmental coordinator for Athens-Clarke County, helped write the grant. He said 88 county vehicles will be retrofitted – including fire trucks, garbage trucks, dump trucks and buses.

Alan Powell, senior environmental engineer at the Southeastern Diesel Collaborative group of the EPA, said retrofitting these vehicles will reduce the amount of particulate matter, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emitted.

Adolphson said each retrofitted vehicle will have its emissions reduced by at least 60 percent.

“[The grant] will definitely improve air quality,” Field said. “We’re anxious to get started.”

Powell said the grant was chosen on several criteria, but a key factor was the number of jobs created. The grant will preserve three jobs and create 29.

Athens Mayor Heidi Davison supports the project. She said the grant would “address environmental degradation that does have long-term health impacts on citizens in our community.”

One such health impact is the risk of lung cancer caused by the particulates, Geller said. He said the size of the diesel particulates are too small to be filtered out by the body, but too big to be absorbed, so they stay in the lungs.

Geller said Athens’ risk was high not only because of transit vehicles, but also because of the diesel locomotives and coal-fired power plants. He said the power plants are the main problem in Washington County, but not so much in Athens.

Powell said despite the high numbers, students and residents should not be afraid of riding transit vehicles. He said he is “100 percent confident” exposure has decreased significantly in areas that have completed comparative retrofitting projects.

Field cited the high risk as one of the reasons Athens-Clarke County is pursuing the project. He said the commission had looked at something similar about a year ago, when Clarke County received an EPA grant to similarly retrofit their school buses – but were not able to meet the grant deadline.

Davison, however, had not heard those numbers.

“That’s new information for me,” she said.

The statistic concerned Davison, who said cancer and other respiratory problems usually affect the young, elderly and immunocompromised.

With Athens’ high poverty rate, she said, “there are lots of individuals who fit that spectrum.”