Countywide : County Intends to Limit Aerosol Paint

In an attempt to further reduce environmentally harmful emissions, the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday gave air pollution regulators permission to draft a measure restricting types of paint sold in aerosol cans.

Keith Duval, a manager of the Air Pollution Control District, said regulators hope to model the county’s aerosol-can measure after one adopted by an air pollution district in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Bay Area’s measure has forced aerosol paint manufacturers to develop more environmentally safe paint formulas, reducing emissions from the cans by about 45%. Duval said Ventura County officials have been talking with several national paint manufacturers to find out if they could also sell the upgraded formulas here.

As of 1987, about a ton of damaging chemicals was released per day in the county from aerosol cans, worsening air pollution and depleting the Earth’s protective ozone layer, Duval said. Officials hope to reduce the county’s emissions from aerosol cans by about 30%.

“We want to come up with a rule that tells manufacturers that they can only sell aerosol in the county that meets the prescribed limits on emissions,” Duval said. He said county pollution experts hope to have an amendment to the board for final implementation by the end of June, 1993.