by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 29/97) - A city school bus was taken off the road last week after a routine inspection turned up high levels of carbon monoxide inside.

"I was a little surprised that it was that high," said Bob Boettger, manager of Arctic Frontier Carriers Ltd.

Despite the obvious hazard, Boettger isn't required to monitor carbon monoxide by the GNWT's motor vehicle division. In fact, last week's incident was the first time carbon monoxide testing was ever done on a school bus in the city.

"We don't do testing," said Richard MacDonald, registrar with the motor vehicle division. "This was done last week mainly because the fire chief was available to do it."

MacDonald said there's no carbon monoxide testing requirement for school bus inspections, which are done every six months.

"It's a mechanical inspection," he said. "And I don't expect them to become part of the territorial regulations. I don't know of any carbon monoxide standards out there."

MacDonald said that any bus found with exhaust problems is taken out of service until it's repaired, so there's no need for carbon monoxide tests.

A leak in the exhaust system would be detected during the mechanical inspection, he said.

"This isn't the first time a bus has been put out of service," he said.

"But we don't put a lot of buses out of service. They are generally in good shape, but when we do find a problem, we act quickly."

Despite the absence of regulations, Boettger said he is looking into buying devices to detect carbon monoxide inside the buses.

"This was probably a good thing because it identified a concern," said Boettger. "We're now looking at ways to detect carbon monoxide levels in the bus earlier."