Lockheed Agrees to Pay $1-Million Pollution Fine

Lockheed Corp. agreed Thursday to pay a record $1-million fine to settle allegations by air-quality officials that paint-spraying activities at its Los Angeles area plants violated anti-smog rules.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District said it was the biggest penalty in the 10-year history of the El Monte-based agency. The fine came seven months after Lockheed paid a record $1.5-million penalty to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to settle 440 alleged violations of workplace safety rules at its local plants.

The AQMD cited Lockheed, a Calabasas-based aerospace and defense systems concern, for about 6,750 alleged violations after a seven-month inspection of its facilities last year, said Peter C. Mieras, an AQMD deputy prosecutor. About 6,000 of the violations concerned inadequate record-keeping procedures, he said.

Record-keeping is important, Mieras said, because Lockheed operates under rules that allow the company to use some coatings and solvents whose hydrocarbon emissions exceed normal AQMD limits. Lacking correct records, the agency can’t monitor whether Lockheed is operating legally, he said.

The remaining 750 alleged violations occurred when paint spraying by Lockheed workers emitted more hydrocarbons than the company’s records showed, Mieras said.

When released into the air, the hydrocarbons in paints and solvents mix with nitrogen and sunlight to create ozone--a major component of smog. In recent years, the AQMD has clamped down on the Los Angeles furniture industry because its heavy use of coatings and solvents is a major contributor to smog.

“Fumes from paints are not an insignificant source of pollution for us,” said AQMD spokesman Tom Eichhorn. He said fumes from evaporating paints and solvents emit 11 times more reactive hydrocarbons than all the oil refineries in the basin.

Besides paying the penalty, Lockheed agreed to adopt better record-keeping procedures and to acquire state-of-the-art painting equipment that would meet AQMD standards on paint-related emissions.

Lockheed said the AQMD and OSHA citations were not related. But the findings of both agencies focused on plants in Burbank, Palmdale and Rye Canyon near Valencia that are operated by Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co., the company’s aerospace unit. Some of Lockheed’s work at those facilities involves classified projects for the Pentagon, including production of a top-secret Stealth fighter jet that is supposed to evade enemy radar.

The Lockheed penalty eclipsed the previous record AQMD fine of $335,000 levied last October against Gary Lazar, the owner of 160 gasoline stations where gasoline pump nozzles failed to keep fumes from escaping into the air.