FIRM MUST REDUCE CANCER RISK PLASTICS COMPANY EXCEEDS NEW AQMD EMISSION LIMITS.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - A Saugus manufacturer is among two dozen Southland companies that would violate tougher air-quality standards that state regulators set last week to reduce cancer risks.

Bowing to staff recommendations, as well as to pressure from environmental groups and residents from neighborhoods with large manufacturers, the South Coast Air Quality Management District voted 8-1 Friday to toughen emissions standards that aim to reduce by 75 percent cancer risks from companies, officials said.

The new regulations would force about 19 businesses throughout Los Angeles County - including plastics manufacturer Keysor-Century Corp. in Saugus - to comply by 2003. Six other companies are in Riverside and Orange counties, AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said.

The new regulations, based on mathematical theory, reduce the maximum allowable cancer risk limit for people exposed over a 70-year lifetime from 100 cancers per million people to 25 cancers per million.

Keysor-Century's cancer risk has been assessed at 62 cases per million, according to AQMD records.

The new standards, as well as Keysor-Century's placement on a list of would-be violators, surprised Chief Executive Officer Howard Hill, who questioned the criteria used in the risk assessment.

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

Keysor-Century, which has about $50 million in annual sales, has produced plastics on Springbrook Avenue in Saugus for the past 43 years. It employs 115 people.

The company converts a colorless gas and known carcinogen, vinyl chloride, into polyvinyl chloride for plastics production, according to Hill. The raw materials primarily are shipped to Keysor-Century by rail and stored in airtight containers. The company does not vent production gases into the air, he added.

Company officials will meet with AQMD officials to determine how the risk assessments were calculated, Hill said.

Different criteria used in past risk assessments have placed Keysor- Century's cancer risk rate in the two-to-10 cases per million range and, most recently, as high as 62 cases per million, he said.

In addition to chemicals vented into the air, risk assessments generally factor criteria that includes wind and weather patterns, emissions technology and the devices' efficiency, height of smokestacks and distances to residences, schools and other businesses, Atwood said.

The AQMD's new rules also aim to reduce allowable risks for such ailments as birth defects and respiratory diseases that could arise from industrial emissions, officials said.

Keysor-Century officials will have a better idea of how the new AQMD regulations would affect company operations after they review their own risk assessment with the AQMD, Hill said.

Councilwoman Jill Klajic, a longtime advocate for tougher environmental controls, on Tuesday praised the AQMD's new emissions laws.

``They should have done this a long time ago,'' she said. ``I know that particular company has been a concern for some time.''

Numerous seniors who lived across the street from Keysor-Century had complained to Klajic in the past about smells coming from the plant, she said, and she recalled calling the Fire Department herself several years ago to report a ``terrible odor'' near Keysor-Century. Fire officials investigated but found no problems, she said.

But Hill said he didn't recall any residents' complaints and blamed neighborhood odors on a nearby Los Angeles County's wastewater treatment plant in Saugus.

AQMD officials were unable to comment Tuesday about whether Keysor-Century had any history of past air-quality violations. The company's records were not readily available late Tuesday, Atwood said.

Would-be violators that exceed new cancer risk limits as of last Friday will have three years to comply with the new standards, depending on the level of risk and proximity to schools, said Atwood. Companies will have to submit updated risk assessments by 2003 and undergo unannounced AQMD inspections, he said.

Some companies will be able to apply for two-year compliance extensions. To qualify, companies will have to prove either that the technology needed to meet the new standard remains commercially unavailable or that costs exceed $4 million per avoided cancer case, officials said.

AQMD research shows that industrial emissions overall contribute about 10 percent of air pollutants that carry cancer risks. Other sources such as cars, trucks, forklifts and airplanes contribute 90 percent of air toxins, Atwood said.

CAPTION(S):

photo, map

Photo: (color) Plastics manufacturer Keysor-Century Corp. in Saugus is one of several Southland companies that will have to reduce cancerous emissions, under a new air-quality requirement.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

Map: Keysor-Century Corp.

The Saugus company will be subject to new air-quality standards.

Staff Artist