AQMD Board Delays Vote on Regulations

Bombarded by five hours of critical testimony Friday, the region’s air quality agency postponed its vote on a controversial regulation that would force an estimated 7,000 businesses to cut their emissions of toxic air contaminants.

Dozens of aggrieved business representatives, environmentalists, community activists and dueling scientists streamed to the podium throughout the daylong public hearing at the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Diamond Bar headquarters. Although they sniped at each other’s facts and attempted to undermine each other’s experts, they were united in one goal: to keep the AQMD from approving a pair of toxics regulations.

By 4:30 p.m., so many of the 12-member AQMD board had left that the hearing was continued until Aug. 13. With fewer than seven members present, no votes can legally be held.

Although the regulations were five years in the making, the board will now have another month to figure out how to lower the risk of cancer and other health effects caused by toxic chemicals spewed into the skies--without producing so much opposition.

The most controversial of the two regulations under consideration would force existing businesses--from small dry cleaners and auto body shops to large oil refineries--to review for the first time how their emissions of 117 toxic pollutants affect residents around them and to take steps to reduce those emissions.

Environmentalists testifying Friday said the proposed rules are too lax, while business interests contend that they are too stringent.

“There are too many unresolved issues,” board Chairman Henry W. Wedaa said early in the meeting. “I am not in a position to vote.”