Common Solvent Added to Toxics List : Health: Dry cleaners fear new status for ‘perc’ will drive mom-and-pop operations out of business.

A solvent widely used as dry-cleaning fluid was named Thursday to the toxics list of the California Air Resources Board over the emotional objections of dry cleaners who maintain that the result will be frightened customers, higher insurance costs and failing businesses.

Perchloroethylene is a probable human carcinogen, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Public Health Service. Research shows increased rates of liver tumors and leukemia in rats and mice exposed to the compound.

But its potency, on the average, is much lower than that of cancer-causing compounds on the ARB’s list, such as benzene, chromium, vinyl chloride and asbestos, said ARB spokesman Bill Sessa.

At a 12-hour hearing in Sacramento, the board expressed concerns over the uncertainties of calculating cancer risks, and called on California environmental authorities to review the health evidence on the compound.

Of 13,000 tons of perchloroethylene--”perc,” for short--emitted into California’s air each year, 11,000 tons come from dry cleaners. But the ARB’s decision Thursday will not limit the use of perc immediately, although some controls are expected eventually.

Still, dozens of owners said at the hearing and in interviews that the consequences of adding perc to the toxics list would be fatal to their businesses, which they characterized as mostly mom-and-pop operations often run by immigrants.

“We are not criminals. We do not cause cancer,” said Stephen Green, owner of dry-cleaning shops in Brentwood, Sherman Oaks and Pacific Palisades. He said he was unconvinced by the ARB’s scientific findings.

“If anybody’s going to get cancer from perc,” he said, “it’s us. But we aren’t. Why is that being ignored?”

As the 16th compound to be placed on the state list, perchloroethylene must be regulated by the ARB. Framing a plan and specific rules could take more than a year, Sessa said.

Perc also becomes eligible for public-notice requirements of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which has jurisdiction over Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

This means that the AQMD will hold public hearings and workshops before deciding whether to require new businesses to inform neighbors that their operations will be using perc. That process is expected to take about six months.

The ARB estimates 600 excess cancer cases will occur statewide over 70 years due to perc use.

But “potentially, it’s a much higher risk in isolated places for people that are exposed to the highest concentrations,” Sessa said. A person who receives the maximum exposure--living in the same place for 70 years near one of eight Southern California facilities--could face a much higher risk. Of 1 million people, 480 of them exposed to high concentrations would be expected to develop cancer, he said.

Wayne K. Freedland, sales manager for a firm that markets perc, said: “Living involves risk assessment. Do I go out of the house today, do I drive a car, do I get in a plane? We’re creating chemophobia in the population.”

Dry cleaners rank with service stations as the most pervasive sources of toxic chemicals in most urban areas, said a U.S. congressional staff member involved in overseeing the federal Clean Air Act.

“No one has a political agenda to try and hurt dry cleaners,” he said.