RV maker to add pollutants to the air.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

JUNCTION CITY - An increase in recreational vehicles rolling off the line at Country Coach in Junction City will mean a 38 percent increase in smog-related chemicals the factory releases into the atmosphere.

An ongoing minor plant expansion - as compared with a 74-acre boom the company plans in future years - will add three giant painting stalls and a smaller cabinet finishing bay.

Plant officials said they've avoided the kind of controversy that Monaco Coach Corp., an RV maker in Coburg, encountered six years ago when it added new painting stalls.

In that case, residential neighbors sued Monaco for $33 million, and they settled only after the company agreed to install $2 million in pollution control devices and pay immediate neighbors who were unable to sell their houses for market value.

Country Coach is building its new building containing the paint stalls in the middle of its property instead of along the property line, spokesman Matt Howard said.

"Our paint booths are set back on our properties in the middle of our operations. They are not bordering directly any residential areas," he said.

The chemicals the plant increasingly will emit are toluene, xylene and n-butyl alcohol, which are in a class of pollutants called volatile organic compounds.

When vaporized, they react in the presence of sunlight to form ozone. Ozone formed near the ground is a major component of smog, which can cause lung damage.

Country Coach's new painting building is expected to be up and running by next summer. It will allow the plant to increase its production by 30 percent, Howard said.

In papers filed with the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority, the company said that with the booths, it would boost production by 324 coaches annually, bringing the total produced at the plant to 1,246 a year.

The company will not be required to place burners or other pollution control devices on the new stalls, but will instead be required to use paints formulated to release lower amounts of chemical into the air.

The company currently emits 158 tons of volatile organic compounds a year into the air.

With the current expansion, that would rise by 60 tons, to 218 tons.

Air pollution officials are not requiring the plant to take other steps to reduce pollutants, because the cost of cleaning the air with burners or other scrubbing devices would be at least $29,900 per ton of pollutants emitted. The air agency determined that that figure would not be economically feasible for the company.

"$10,000 per ton is the upper limit," said Max Hueftle, the air authority's environmental engineer.

Despite rising gasoline prices, the company says that demand for its RVs is strong. Country Coach serves the luxury end of the RV market.

Separate from the paint-booth additions, Country Coach is planning a long-term expansion on 74 acres of farmland next to its complex.