County to Crack Down on Navy Over Emissions From Paints

San Diego County air quality officials said Thursday they are seeking enforcement action against the U.S. Navy because of its persistent use of paints and other coatings that violate state air pollution emission standards.

Paul Sidhu, deputy director of the county Air Pollution Control District, said he has recommended the issuance of an abatement order enjoining the Navy and naval contractors from continuing their widespread application of the paints, which emit reactive hydrocarbons--a principal component of smog.

“The coatings emit high levels of hydrocarbons, and these emissions are the ones that create smog,” Sidhu said. “Smog is a big problem here in San Diego, and we are doing everything we can to bring levels down. The Navy is a significant contributor and must be brought into compliance.”

New Formula

Navy officials, meanwhile, maintain they are doing their best to develop new paints that can meet tough military requirements without fouling the air. Stephen Katz, an attorney for the Navy’s Regional Contracting Center in San Diego, said tests to reformulate the coatings take time but are now nearing fruition.

“Needless to say, we want to be a good neighbor,” Katz said. “We are yielding these new developments (in aerospace paints) as we speak. Honestly. We are that close to coming into compliance.”

The paints are used on aircraft and ground support equipment at the Miramar and North Island naval air stations and, on a more limited basis, at other naval facilities, Sidhu said. Some applications are done by Navy personnel, while others are performed by defense contractors like General Dynamics and Rohr Industries at the Navy’s request.

Rules barring use of the paints were established by air pollution control districts throughout California in 1979. The new regulations were part of the state’s response to tougher air standards ushered in by the federal Clean Air Act, which was passed in 1970 and amended in 1977.

For the past eight years, the district has granted the Navy and industries “numerous extensions and variances” aimed at allowing them to adjust to the stricter regulations, Sidhu said.

“We have given them a fair amount of time, and they still have not complied,” Sidhu said, noting that industries using similar paints have met state standards. “They received a one-year variance from our hearing board in 1985-86 and did not make any progress. Then they came in and filed another petition for (an exemption) in August.”

Compliance Move

That action prompted district officials to look at new means of forcing the Navy into compliance--something “that would have more teeth,” Sidhu said. That approach had still more appeal when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent out a letter earlier this year, stating that it would tolerate no more variances from air quality standards for the Navy.

And because San Diego is already in violation of federal standards for ozone--caused largely by reactive hydrocarbons, which are present in the coatings--district officials are looking to curb emissions wherever they can.

On July 9, a public hearing will be held on the district’s petition for an abatement order, which names Secretary of the Navy James H. Webb and San Diego’s naval commander, Rear Adm. Bruce Boland, as defendants. Negotiations between the district and Navy officials are under way, in hopes that an agreement can be reached before the hearing.

District officials probably will require the Navy to bring its use of certain paints into compliance with state standards by the end of this year; all coatings would need to meet regulations by December, 1988. Meanwhile, the Navy may be required to install emission control equipment at its paint spraying booths as one way to minimize the release of pollutants.

Sidhu said penalties as high as $10,000 a day may be assessed as “further incentive” beginning in July, 1988, if the Navy is not in full compliance with the law by then. And if the abatement order is violated, fines reaching $25,000 a day can be collected.

Military Requirements

Katz said the Navy is eager to obey air pollution control laws but has so far been unable to develop paints that are durable enough to meet the needs of the military, which must have materials “resistant to the changing environmental conditions around the world.”

“The Navy has a requirement for its aircraft and its ground support equipment . . . for (paints that) are perhaps of a hardier quality in fighting corrosion and rust and have perhaps longer durability,” Katz said. “These requirements make most of the paints we use of specified government quality rather than off-the-shelf paints.”

Testing to reformulate the materials to reduce their content of volatile organic compounds have been under way at military laboratories in Pennsylvania, he said, and are just now producing promising results. The new paints should be in use locally and elsewhere by December, he said.

The Navy is the second-largest air polluter in San Diego County, generating 5% of the county’s industrial pollution. First is San Diego Gas & Electric, which produces 25%.