San Marcos Firm, Once Top County Air Polluter, Praised for Cleanup : Environment: Lens manufacturer’s $1.5-million program is expected to cut toxic emissions by end of year to 50% of 1989 levels.

Signet Armorlite, the San Marcos company listed as the county’s prime polluter by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1987, won approval from the county’s Air Pollution Control District Wednesday for cleaning up its act.

The firm, which employs about 950 workers on a round-the-clock production schedule, manufactures about 20 million plastic lenses annually and uses cleaning solvents which have been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

APCD executive Richard Sommerville said the firm has reduced by 25% the amount of methylene chloride gas emissions from its plant and expects to cut its toxic emissions to 50% of 1989 levels by the end of the year.

The EPA listing of Armorlite as the county’s worst air polluter in 1987 raised concerns of local residents and officials from nearby Palomar Community College who thought that toxic gases might pose cancer risks on the campus and nearby residential areas. The toxics were found to pose no short-term health risk to humans and the company launched a $1.5-million program to remove any long-term risks.

George Benoit, Armorlite operations services manager, said Wednesday that the firm has reduced its use of the solvent causing most of toxic air pollution and has a schedule that will reduce emissions by 1994 to about 10% of 1989 levels of 425 tons of pollutants a year.

APCD officials said that Armorlite emissions pose “no imminent or short-term danger to public health or safety,” and will meet state and federal levels of safety for long-term exposure when the 90% emissions reduction is met in March, 1994.

In assessing the risk, APCD officials purposely overestimated the chances of contracting cancer from the toxic gases, basing their calculations on a hypothetical person who remained at the point of maximum emissions 24 hours a day for 70 years. Even so, the health risk from long-term exposure to the Armorlite emissions will be less than 10 in 1 million by 1994, well within the APCD guidelines of safety.

The offending chemical, methylene chloride, is used as a cleaning solvent to remove residual plastic and resin from molds used in the production of eyeglass lenses at the plant. Armorlite has reduced its use of the solvent, substituting other less carcinogenic cleaning materials. The firm also has refined it manufacturing techniques to lessen exposure to the toxic gases, Benoit said.

The APCD also said that two other chemicals used by Armorlite--Freon 113 (chlorinated fluorocarbon) and acetone--”were found to pose no significant health risk.” However, Freon 113 is a chemical known to contribute to depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and federal regulations require that its use be restricted and eliminated by the year 2000.

Palomar College President George Boggs said that he is “very happy with the way the company has reacted. They took the concerns of the public and the college seriously. They acted, although it ended up costing them a lot of money.”

Boggs said that students and staff at the college were concerned when word of the toxic gas problem surfaced, but none reported any ill effects from the pollution. The concern has waned because the firm took immediate and decisive action to remedy the problem, he said.