AQMD dealmaking is dose of reality at smog bureaucracy.

AQMD dealmaking is dose of reality at smog bureaucracy

Aerospace companies hoping to dodge strict pollution limits found an unlikely ally at the South Coast Air Quality Management District in its new role as environmental horse trader.

The AQMD adopted a rule change June 1 that will let Southland defense contractors legally exceed pollution standards on industrial paints and solvents for three years if they buy and destroy pre-1979 model cars. Air regulators say it will help cleanse the region's dirty air while giving aerospace companies time to comply with tightened AQMD rules on specialty coatings applied to planes, missiles and radar gear.

The plan, unlike Unocal Corp's offer to buy back used cars for $700 each, may also enable those companies to avoid pollution fines. Last year defense contractors made up a large portion of the AQMD's most heavily fined businesses because of paint violations. McDonnell Douglas' Palmdale facility, for example, was fined nearly $29,000 for excessive paint emissions and Ford Aerospace's plant in Newport Beach was penalized $250,000 for similar problems.

Air regulators are unsure how many of the 1.6 million pre-1979 model cars in the Southland will be taken off the road by the swap. Estimates range from 900 cars to 78,000.

The prospect of jumping into the used-car junking business stirred a generally positive reaction from aerospace companies.

"We think it's an innovative program," said Douglas Aircraft Co. spokesman John Thom. "But we haven't made any decisions to buy any of the cars because we are studying the rule," he said. Douglas applies specialty paints and solvents, all regulated by smog czar edicts, on the Air Force's C-17 transport plane and the MD-11, a long-range commercial aircraft.

Vern Wocknick, Hughes Aircraft's senior liaison for regulatory affairs, said the decision gives aerospace industries, already under attack from federal defense cuts, an important escape valve.

"The air district has recognized the need to maintain flexibility and has provided aerospace companies with a creative option," Wocknick said.

Hughes, which builds radar systems, satellites and missiles locally, will consider buying and junking older cars while tests are completed on new types of paints and solvents able to pass AQMD and other government specifications, Wocknick said.

Others, however, were not as sanguine about the district's plan to swap environmental credits for polluting junkers.

Northrop Corp., for example, will not purchase any of the cars and will concentrate exclusively on developing less-polluting paints for its work on the B-2 Bomber and F/A-18 Hornet jet and other projects, company spokeswoman Sally Koris said.

District officials themselves warn not to expect any less smog or traffic on the freeway in the near future. The swap will only take effect after companies have given the details for purchasing and disposing of the vehicles to the AQMD. To prevent bootlegging, only registered cars, owned by drivers who have state insurance, are candidates for the program.

And, to get rid of the older cars once and for all, companies only get credit when they show the vehicles have been dismantled. Because dismantlers often recycle and sell the metal for scrap, companies can expect to get roughly $83 a car.

Nevertheless, the used car swap -- one of the first times the AQMD has enacted a so-called "market incentive program" -- alters a high-profile regulation passed in April. That rule tightened the environmental screws on aerospace companies, forcing them to gradually reduce volatile organic compounds from paints, solvents and adhesive by roughly 50 percent.

VOCs, a class of pollutants that form smog when combined with nitrogen oxide in sunlight, are spewed into the air during the application of specialized paints, coatings and adhesives. Each day 1,246 tons of VOCs are dumped into the Southland air by industry and automobiles. The 320 aerospace-related companies that operate in the four-county area -- Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- presently emit about 10 tons daily of that total.

Air regulators say environmental factors were the main reason they adopted the new approach, because older cars contribute a disproportionate amount of pollution. Still, depending on the number and age of cars taken off the road, the used car swap may reap dividends for aerospace companies.

"This rule was designed to help companies offset paint emissions for whatever reason," said AQMD Engineering Manager Art Segal. "They must be using less controlling paints by 1994 and this gives them an option. Economics was only part of it though, because getting those cars off the street reduces other pollutants besides VOCs."

Aerospace outfits routinely pay thousands of dollars to limit emissions from paints and solvents through tailor-made paint booths, filtration systems and newly developed, less polluting paints. The average cost to comply with the bevy of AQMD rules runs between $10,000 and $50,000 for each ton of paint used.

The district estimates that it will cost those same companies between $9,000 and $26,000 to buy enough used cars to exceed pollution standards by one ton.

The program works like this: an aerospace company that buys a used car receives a pollution credit that allows it to surpass VOC limits by a certain amount each day between now and 1994. The amount of credit allotted hinges upon the age of the car, with the oldest models getting the most credit.

The purchase and destruction of a pre-1972 car gives a firm the right to exceed VOC limits by roughly one-quarter pound a day., 15 pounds a day for a vehicle made between 1972 and 1975, and .09 pounds a day for a car produced between 1976 and 1979.

The logic behind the AQMD swap is that it is harder to get older cars off the road than it is to regulate aerospace companies. But there is a catch.

Companies seeking credits must remove 20 percent more VOCs -- from the purchase of older-model cars -- than would be removed if they complied with new district pollution limits.

For example, if a company wanted to emit 10 pounds more VOCs than it was allowed, it would be required to buy back and destroy 46 pre-1972 model cars.

The AQMD's Segal said the district would closely monitor how many cars are junked and will consider it a litmus test for market-based pollution rules.

"This is a test program. If it works, we many consider extending it to other rules," Segal said.

That would be welcome news to AQMD critics who say the district has too often enacted draconian measures on industrial sources, which create roughly one-third of Southland pollution, instead of market-based environmental incentives.