CANCER FINDINGS PROTESTED SYLMAR COMPANY TOPS LIST OF 22 SOUTHLAND POLLUTERS FIRMS CHALLENGE POLLUTION FINDINGS.

Byline: Erik Nelson Staff Writer

SYLMAR - Three local companies that topped a list of Southland polluters challenged those findings Tuesday and declared they are working to cut their emissions to comply with tough new anti-pollution regulations just adopted by a regional air quality board.

A Sylmar-based aircraft fastener company was the biggest cancer threat based on toxic air emissions, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The list was released when the agency voted Friday to toughen emissions standards by 75 percent.

Executives of Valley-Todeco Inc. said they were both baffled and upset by the designation.

``We don't know where the numbers came from,'' said William White, president and chief operating officer of Valley-Todeco, a subsidiary of the British firm McKehnie PLC. ``We're in full compliance with all of the AQMD regulations.''

Their dismay could be the result of outdated information - a decade old in the case of the Sylmar company - fed into a computer program that calculated the district's cancer risk ranking.

According to the ranking, tubing maker Senior Flexonics Inc. of Burbank is sixth-worst while plastics manufacturer Keysor-Century Corp. of Saugus is ninth on the list of 22 companies with cancer risks above the new standard.

The district's board on Friday adopted a new standard that cut the allowable cancer risk from air emissions from 100-in-1 million to 25-in- 1 million. Companies have until 2003 to comply with the new rules or risk sanctions.

The agency's decision was accompanied by a list of commercial facilities that would not meet the new standard if it were in place now, along with a calculation of the cancer risk posed by each site's emissions.

Valley-Todeco's facility on Bradley Avenue in Sylmar led the list because its air emissions were calculated to cause a 388-in-1 million chance of contracting cancer, based upon someone inhaling air pollutants during a 70-year period.

Keysor-Century's placement on a list of would-be violators also surprised Chief Executive Officer Howard Hill, who questioned the criterion used in the risk assessment.

``We have never resisted or fought regulation,'' he said. ``But my real guess is that we'd comply right now if the rules were in effect today.''

Valley-Todeco soon will meet that standard, too, said Sam Contino, the company's safety and health director. In about three weeks the company will receive a $225,000 device that will use water to clean grease off machine parts. The only emissions coming from the plant, which employs about 150 workers, are from a degreaser called a perchloroethylene that now performs that job.

The new standards were adopted by the air quality board as a compromise between the 50-in-1 million standard urged by industry representatives and the 1-in-1 million standard urged by environmental groups, said Jack Broadbent, chief of planning and rules for the air quality district. The new regulations are less strict than the 10-in-1 million cancer risk standard recommended by the air quality district's staff.

Broadbent said that updated information promised by companies could significantly alter their standings.

In the past year alone, shrinking orders at Valley-Todeco have reduced revenues by 38 percent, while it has stopped using one of the two pollutants, chromium, cited by the air quality district, Contino said.

And the company might not even belong on the list at all because it could be classified as an aerospace industry. The board on Friday decided to make a separate set of rules for the aerospace industry that might involve limiting certain industrial activities rather than forcing companies to meet cancer risk standards, Broadbent said.

Most residents interviewed in the affected areas praised the stricter standards.

Debbie Dalton, a software instructor with medical device maker MiniMed, regularly takes lunchtime walks along San Fernando Road near Valley-Todeco with colleague Candi MuCulloch and Kathy Nisbaum from the neighboring Coca-Cola distribution center.

All three said they had seen state-mandated warnings posted on their office bulletin boards about the cancer risk from perchloroethylene.

``There's enough worries in regard to health,'' Dalton said. ``The concern is that if we go walking three days a week, an hour at a time, are you at a greater risk than someone who sits inside?''

- Staff Writers Michael Coit and Angela M. Lemire contributed to this story.

CAPTION(S):

photo, map

Photo: Medical Research Group employees Nancy Rogers, left, and Celeste Nason walk past Valley-Todeco Inc. on their lunch break. The Sylmar company topped the list of Southland polluters.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer

Map: TOXIC THREATS

Company, ......................Risk of cancer cases

Location.......................per million people*

1. Valley-Todeco Inc. ...............388

12975 Bradley Ave., Sylmar.

6. Senior Flexonics Inc. ............113

2980 N. San Fernando Road, Burbank.

9. Keysor-Century Corp. ..............62

26000 Springbook Ave., Saugus.

*Based on preliminary estimates

SOURCE: AQMD

Staff Artist