Mendoza

LA GRANDE — Students in the La Grande School District may be riding electric school buses 20 months from now.

The school district’s bus provider — Mid Columbia Bus Company — will soon submit a grant proposal to the Environmental Protection Agency that would allow it to add up to 10 electric buses to its fleet. The application, which is being prepared by the school district, must be submitted by the end of December, according to Austin Tibbetts, location manager for Mid Columbia Bus Company’s Grande Ronde Transportation district.

The grant would allow Mid Columbia, through a rebate program, to receive up to 10 new electric school buses. Mid Columbia would receive the electric buses for no cost, on the condition that for each bus received it would decommission one bus made in 2007 or earlier.

“We would have to provide proof that they would not be used in Oregon again,” Tibbetts said.

Should Mid Columbia garner the grant, Tibbetts believes the company would not receive the new buses until the 2025-26 school year. The reason is that extensive infrastructure work would have to be done at the La Grande site before it could operate electric buses.

“A lot of drilling work would be needed and power lines would have to be put in,” he said.

Mid Columbia’s Grande Ronde Transit district, which serves school districts in Union and Baker counties, has 17 buses currently being used for its La Grande School District routes. The electric buses it would receive would all run in the La Grande School District.

Tibbetts believes there is a good chance that Mid Columbia will receive the EPA grant because of the age of its fleet.

“We have quite a few older buses,” he said.

La Grande School District Superintendent George Mendoza said participating in the program would help the school district meet new state emission standards that will take effect in 2025.

The La Grande School District and Mid Columbia would be following the lead of several other Oregon school districts if it goes electric on the bus front.

The Beaverton School District was the first Oregon district to acquire electric school buses — two 120-mile range Blue Bird models that started running routes in 2021, according to the Oregon Department of Energy’s website.

Earlier this year, according to the ODE site, the Bend-LaPine School District acquired its first all-electric bus.