County Moves to Limit Auto Paint Pollution : Emissions: Shops and hobbyists may be required to use low-toxic sprays, more efficient equipment and enclosed booths.

The Board of Supervisors moved Tuesday to drastically cut toxic emissions released during automobile painting, which one expert described as the greatest single health risk from pollution sources in Ventura County.

“Just painting one car in a residential area can cause a very significant cancer risk in the entire neighborhood,” said Robert Sears, an Ojai resident and government toxics analyst.

The supervisors, though delaying a final vote for two weeks, agreed Tuesday that they should impose a new law designed to reduce hydrocarbon emissions from vehicle painting by 85%.

Hydrocarbons help create ozone, the county’s chief air pollutant. The new rules would eliminate about 1% of hydrocarbons countywide.

The rules require paint shops--and private auto-painting hobbyists--to use low-toxic paints, more efficient spraying equipment and enclosed booths that would capture hydrocarbons and microscopic paint mists that now escape into the air.

Paints now usually contain large amounts of chromium, a potent carcinogen, and lead, a poison so durable that it is passed on from parents to their children. Both lead and chromium fly into the air during painting and are inhaled or settle into the skin, officials said.

“Some of the greatest (toxic) exposures in California are from auto painting,” Sears said. “And a lot of these activities are totally uncontrolled.”

Officials said they are proposing the new restrictions not only to reduce smog and toxic mists at the county’s 80 licensed auto body and paint shops, but also to respond to neighbors’ complaints about amateur auto painters.

The county Air Pollution Control District now has too little power to stop back-yard paint jobs, district manager Richard H. Baldwin said. “This is one of the most common complaints received by the district,” he said.

But Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, who said her husband is an amateur auto painter, questioned the effectiveness of the new rule on unlicensed hobbyists.

“Who is going to be driving around making sure no one is doing this?” she asked. A California Auto Body Assn. director has estimated that more than 40,000 illegal paint jobs are done in Ventura County each year. “I kind of question if this will work,” VanderKolk said.

Baldwin acknowledged that one hole in the new law is that it continues to allow the sale of auto paints to amateurs. Industry officials recommended sale only to licensed shops. But Baldwin said the prohibition makes no sense because no other county has similar restrictions.

Baldwin recommended that the supervisors attempt to change state law so paint sales to amateurs are illegal.

The new law allows hobbyists to continue to paint autos but only in enclosed booths that can be rented, Baldwin said.

Maryanne McCracken, treasurer of the Ventura Auto Body Assn. and co-owner of a Saticoy body shop, said in an interview that she does not oppose the new restrictions.

“I don’t disagree that it needs to be done,” she said. “I just think they should phase it in.”

Most of the new rules would go into effect in July, but expensive painting booths would not be required until October, officials said.

McCracken said she and her husband, John, will pay about $9,000 to implement the new rules, although they already have an enclosed painting booth.

New booths cost between $5,000 and $50,000, but all except one or two of the county’s licensed painters already have them, county officials said. New, efficient spray nozzles cost $550, but painters will save enough paint to repay the costs in two years, officials said.