10,000 firms to be affected by new ozone rules.

10,000 firms to be affected by new ozone rules

Hoping to slash Southern California's role in depletion of the ozone layer, regional air quality officials laid out plans last week to reduce the earthly emissions generated by automobile repair shops and car dealerships.

Roughly 10,000 business would be affected by the proposed guidelines.

Officials from the South Coast Air Quality Management District disclosed their intentions Nov. 20 to halve the chlorofluro-carbons, or CFCs, emitted into Southern California's air when automobile air conditioners are serviced. The AQMD's proposed rule - if approved by the district board in February and set into motion six months later - would be only the second AQMD policy regulating chemicals that destroy the ozone layer.

The AQMD's proposal calls for the mandatory use of equipment that recovers and recycles air conditioner refrigerants, like DuPont's trademarked freon, by the estimated 4,000 autobody-repair shops and 6,000 gasoline stations in the four-county South Coast basin. It would also outlaw the sale and use of air conditioner refrigerants, known as CFC-12, in containers weighing less than 15 pounds to deter do-it-yourselfers from spilling the refrigerant.

"We think the ozone layer problem is so critical that we need to reduce the CFC emmissions as quickly as possible," AQMD spokeman Bill Kelly said. "The technology is there."

While no economic impact study has been yet completed by AQMD, agency officials estimate the cost of buying the recycling equipment ranges from $400 to $2,000. Projections show the rule would eliminate 48 percent of the CFCs emitted when air conditioners are serviced and 6 percent of the CFCs when the cars are scrapped.

CFCs are believed to eat away the protective stratospheric ozone layer that shields the earth from the sun's ultraviolet rays, which have been linked to some types of cancer.

Like most new AQMD rules, predictions by businesses ranged from financial gloom to environmental zeal.

"It's getting tougher and tougher on the little guy," said Charlie Ohanesian, who owns an automobile service shop in San Gabriel and attended the Nov. 20 public workshop in Rosemead. "There is not much we can do but abide by the rules. I'm just afraid (that the increasing number of environmental rules) will put me out of business. First it was gas tanks, then it was aerosols and now it's CFCs."

Carroll Bailey, a service instructor for Jaguar mechanics in the Southland had a different view. "I think it's a great idea. I want my grandchildren to breathe," Bailey said, noting that Jaguar already instructs its workers to recycle CFCs with machines that filter out dirt and moisture.

David Leyda, service manager for Jim Slemons Mercedes-Benz in Newport Beach, said the size of his firm's operations can handle both the recycling requirements and administrative load of the new rule. Leyda, like Ohanesian, said he wasn't so sure about the mom-and-pop gasoline stations that work on air conditioners.

"I think the smaller ones will be concerned about the cost," Leyda said.

AQMD officials downplayed the initial equipment and training expenses and said auto repair shops and dealerships will recoup any up-front losses by reusing materials once thrown away.

"There is no question there will be a cost on small businesses but that cost will be paid by revenues generated by reusing materials," Kelly said. "The problem is getting over that investment hump. I'd say $2,000 is an investment most mechanics can afford judging by what I pay to have my car serviced."

Refrigerants used in air conditioners - CFC-12 - account for about 20 percent, or 1.89 million pounds, of the ozone-depleting gases emitted in Southern California annually. By comparison, the servicing and disposal of commercial refrigerators spews 231,660 pounds of CFCs into the air every year, while home air conditioners dump 997,136 pounds annually. Only the use of solvents (3.5 million pounds a year) and certain types of foam products (2.25 million a year) are responsible for more CFC emissions than car air conditioners, according to AQMD calculations.

Should the rule get the green light from AQMD's governing board, any Southland business that installs, services of disposes car air conditioners would be required to get a $200 district operating permit, renew it each year for $150 and keep maintenance records detailing the amount of CFCs they handle.

Workers must also obtain a training certificate from the manufacturer of the recycling equipment or AQMD. Car-related firms would also be prevented from recycling CFCs back into vehicles with leaks.

By broaching the CFC issue, AQMD hopes to get the jump on national and global rules, on CFCs.

The federal Clean Air Act recently signed by President Bush, for example, calls for the mandatory recycling of CFCs by January 1992. Also, recent amendments to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty on both global warming and ozone depletion, requires a phase out of CFCs by the year 2000 by a ban on their manufacturing and sale.

"We think the problem is serious enough that we shouldn't wait two years before we start recapturing CFCs," AQMD's Kelly said.

It may not be easy, with complaints from some businesses that there are too many government agencies - from AQMD, to the Environmental Protection Agency and perhaps even the California Resources Board - working on cuts in ozone depleting chemicals.

"This week it's the AQMD, the next its the EPA, then it's the Department of Motor Vehicles," said Terry Fiskin of the Automobile Manufacturers of Southern California. "It's just layer after layer."

Carl Stratemeier, president of a Kansas-based company that packages air conditioner refrigerants in both 30-pound cylinders and smaller cans, said he favors the recycling rule but is opposed to the ban on CFCs in containers of less than 15 pounds.

"We don't see any reason to remove small containers from the marketplace," Stratemeier said. "They are used by the majority of automobile service centers," Stratemeier said. "The smaller containers are the choice of a majority of automobile service centers and do-it-yourselfers only buy 15 percent of the 12-ounce cans. Trying to eliminate one of the containers is like trying to stop the drug problem by eliminating baggies."

Last February, the Business Journal reported that AQMD would expand the scope of its pollution-control rules from limitations on smog-producing emissions to issues like global warming and ozone-layer depletion.

The AQMD board in January approved its first rule on CFCs, forcing the makers of a wide variety of foam products - from paper cups and fast food packaging to some furniture cushions - to reduce their use of CFCs by nearly 90 percent in a few years.

Those manufacturers, under the rule, are required to either find a replacement to the CFCs or use special equipment called after-burners that traps the ozone damaging chemicals.

Set for consideration at the same time as the automobile air conditioner rule is another regulation covering CFCs from industrial refrigerators, according to Kelly.