Cleaning up the air in Athens has become a priority for the community and the University — a priority both University President Michael Adams and

Bruce Mill, Clean Air Task Force senior scientist, uses a device to test carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Photo by: Dorothy Kozlowski

Athens Mayor Heidi Davison addressed at a demonstration Monday.

At the event, members of the University and Athens communities experienced firsthand how buses, garbage trucks and other utility vehicles could be cleaner and more efficient with the use of a filter to help reduce diesel engine emissions. Funding from a $1.7 million Environmental Protection Agency grant will bring these filters to Athens.

The demonstration, which showed how the filters reduce particulate matter, compared the emissions of a University-owned garbage truck using a diesel engine to a truck with a filter. With the diesel truck, 800 micrograms per cubic meter of black carbon soot came out of the engine pipe. This was 20 times the amount of particles in the air Monday. The truck with the filter reduced black carbon soot levels by 40 to 70 percent.

Davison said the air quality in Athens-Clarke County has been at risk of endangering residents’ health.

“A cleaner community is attractive to current and potential employers,” she said. “Air pollution doesn’t stop at the county lines. They affect all of us here.”

Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said his worries are for his family as far as diesel emissions are concerned.

“As a father, I’m concerned about what my children breathe,” he said. “Particles are insidious because they can get deep within your lungs and can get into your bloodstream and become very harmful.”

Adams addressed what the University is doing to help with the county’s air quality.

“In some ways, UGA has two identities,” Adams said. “The first as a state flagship institution charged with teaching the best and brightest. The second as a land grant institution with the majority responsible to reach out to the state and provide assistance to communities where needed.”

The University Research Foundation partnered with Athens-Clarke County in 2007 to solve the problems diesel fuel emissions were causing.

The partnership, cultivated through the Archway Partnership program, received the grant to clean up diesel emissions. The money was a part of President Barack Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Athens Transit has also contributed to the community’s push for cleaner air.

Sixty percent of Athens Transit riders are students, and the bus service has reduced its diesel emissions through a free ride program.

“One half of their revenue comes from University ridership,” Adams said. “The program keeps 3,000 cars off the streets, and the grant allows for providing additional transit opportunities.”

More than 250 diesel vehicles are expected to use the filter.

The grant also creates jobs in Athens — jobs that will help the environment.

“It is estimated that the project has created 30 domestic jobs and $1.5 million to the state,” Adams said.