Paint Odors at Issue : Hearing Becomes a Pro-GM Rally
A hearing Wednesday, prompted by complaints of offensive odors from the General Motors plant in Van Nuys, became a pro-GM rally as dozens of company workers and suppliers lined up to testify about the economic importance of the giant plant.
Operators of area trucking, sheet metal and industrial supply firms, and even fast-food restaurants, told the South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board that they will lose substantial business or even be forced to close if the board orders GM’s painting operation to cease. Such an action would be likely to cause at least a temporary halt to automobile assembly at the plant at 8000 Van Nuys Blvd.
Letters Received
Some of the businessmen had received letters from GM, warning that unfavorable action by the board could lead to “discontinuance of operation of the General Motors plant.”
GM’s switch to a new auto-painting process in August brought bitter complaints from some downwind neighbors, and has prompted the air-quality district to issue 21 notices to GM for odor violations.
But, among the nearly 70 people who testified during the first day of the hearing Wednesday, critics of GM were outnumbered about 12 to 1 by GM supporters.
Besides suppliers and neighborhood businessmen, the supporters included GM workers, some of whom were excused from their shifts and treated by the company to breakfast in the air district’s cafeteria. Others were neighborhood residents who said odors from the plant have become faint or non-existent, thanks to efforts by GM.
Even a Red Cross representative got into the act, saying a plant shutdown might mean the loss of more than 700 pints of blood that GM workers donate each year.
“God will be testifying later,” an AQMD official joked as he watched the proceedings. “GM contacted God.”
After the hearing, which is scheduled to resume at 1:30 p.m. today at air-district headquarters in El Monte, the hearing board will decide whether to take further action in response to continuing odor complaints from some residents who live along the plant’s northern boundary.
The Van Nuys plant, which employs 5,000 workers, is one of two GM plants making Firebirds and Camaros.
On Oct. 2, the hearing board approved an odor-abatement order negotiated between GM and the air-district staff. The order committed GM to continuing its effort to solve the odor problem and raised from $1,000 to $6,000 the maximum penalty the firm would have to pay for each future odor violation.
Since the abatement order was issued, the AQMD has accused GM of 11 more odor violations. Air district officials said such notices are issued only when several people complain and an air-district inspector has verified that the odor is present.
At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, lawyers for GM and the air district submitted to the board another proposed agreement that would give GM more breathing space while committing the firm to more remedial steps. Before voting on the proposed order, however, the board must hear from air-district and GM witnesses, and all members of the public who want to testify. As a result, the hearing may well extend beyond today.
The October abatement order giving the company more time to work on the problem was approved 3 to 2. That slim margin apparently prompted GM’s effort to rally its troops this time.
Air-district attorney Bill Freedman told the hearing board that the odor problem continues but that “the intensity and duration” of paint odors have diminished.
Mark H. Penskar, attorney for GM, said both the company and the air-district staff believe that the new proposed abatement order “will reduce the problem that has caused the complaints.” He said the order includes remedial steps GM already has been taking but imposed deadlines that “are more stringent” than the company originally “was comfortable with.”
According to the draft order, GM has taken all the steps set forth in the October order and has spent $17.5 million to combat the odor. The company has installed furnaces to burn paint fumes, raised vent stacks on the plant roof for better dispersion of the fumes and changed the chemical makeup of paints and primers to eliminate the most malodorous ingredients.
The proposed new order would require GM to continue efforts to reformulate its paints and to implement other measures within the next several months.
It would also require the company to submit a report next year on “the potential health effects (or lack thereof) of plant emissions in the affected neighborhood.”
Shirley Fannin, chief of communicable disease control for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, told the board that some air samples taken downwind of the plant show that some chemicals are present at levels high enough to be smelled.
But she said the “odor threshold and the health-effects threshold are two separate issues. . . . I don’t think we have any measurements to say there are toxic levels of toxic chemicals.”
Some neighborhood residents say they have suffered headaches and nausea from the paint odors.
GM officials said they had to adopt the smellier painting process to keep up with foreign competition. The new paint system, called “base coat / clear coat,” imparts a more lustrous shine and is used by a growing number of foreign and domestic auto makers.
