AQMD, Furniture Makers Reach Accord
Ending one of its longest and fiercest battles with industry, the Southland’s air quality agency struck a compromise Friday with furniture and other wood product manufacturers in cutting smog-forming fumes.
After years of conflict, the South Coast Air Quality Management District board scrapped an existing regulation that would have required the companies to switch to water-based coatings by July 1, cutting their emissions by 80%. In its place, the board unanimously adopted a rule requiring a 45% reduction in the next year and 81% by 2005.
It is the first major regulation targeting the Southland’s manufacturers to be adopted by the AQMD board in almost three years.
Before the new accord, the relationship between the AQMD and the furniture industry had been antagonistic over the last eight years. Many of the Southland’s small-business owners feared that the stringent rules adopted by the agency, which is responsible for cleaning up the nation’s most polluted air, were forcing them to be uncompetitive with rivals in other areas.
“This rule reaches an equitable compromise,” said Gary Stafford, a furniture factory owner in the City of Industry who heads the California Furniture Manufacturing Assn.
“It cleans up the air considerably and keeps the industry in the basin,” he said. “For once, it’s been a real good process, where industry has been listened to and their problems recognized. At the same time, industry has been fully aware of what the AQMD needs to do.”
Environmentalists, however, said the air board gave up too much in the compromise. The delay means that nearly 15,000 tons of smog-forming pollution that would have been removed will remain in the air over the next nine years, according to an AQMD report.
Linda Waade, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air, criticized the new measure as the latest step by the board to ease limits on business, even though smog remains so severe that the region’s air is routinely declared unsafe to breathe.
“It’s more of the same from the district,” Waade said. “They are in a relaxation mode.”
Since 1993, the agency has struggled to find ways to cut pollution from industry without slowing the region’s economic recovery. Last fall, facing strong industry opposition, the agency abandoned its effort to expand an innovative market, called RECLAIM, which sets emission limits and allows companies to comply by exchanging pollution credits.
As a result, the board has revived its old approach of enacting anti-smog measures for individual sources, and expects to adopt several dozen other rules targeting printers, restaurants and other businesses.
About 1,000 companies in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties manufacture wood products, from patio furniture and picture frames to classical guitars and skateboards, that are sold around the country.
The factories use topcoats, primers and other finishes that contain petroleum-based chemicals--called volatile organic compounds--that react in the air with other gases to form ozone, the main ingredient of smog.
Low-polluting, water-based alternatives are already used by many of the companies. But the delay in mandating their use is necessary, the factory owners and AQMD agreed, because the new coatings do not work on many specialized goods that need a high-quality finish, such as an antiqued look. Only 27% of companies in an AQMD survey said they could convert totally to the nonpolluting coatings available today.
Until 2005, under the new rule, companies can use finishes containing acetone--which is not as low-polluting as water-based finishes but better than ones with more reactive compounds.
The rule’s deadline, originally set for 1994, had already been extended by the board three times, so the industry in total has been granted an 11-year reprieve.
“We thought it was reasonable because there are some real, technical challenges with the water-based systems that haven’t been overcome yet,” said AQMD Assistant Deputy Executive Officer Jack Broadbent. “It’s not to say that the industry hasn’t tried, because there has been an extensive effort on their part.”
Waade of the environmental group said a short postponement would have been reasonable, but “it’s the length of the delay. They gave too much, too soon.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has oversight over smog rules, also expressed concerns Friday and told the AQMD to find a way to compensate for the delayed emission reductions.
Broadbent said the AQMD’s new 15-year smog plan--to be unveiled this summer--will include a way to make up the shortfall, perhaps by accelerating use of pollution-free cleaning solvents at companies working with metal parts.
Most of the Southland’s major manufacturers have already substantially cut pollution under the AQMD’s rules, and smog levels have dropped dramatically in the last three decades. Yet the AQMD must cut industry emissions by an additional 70% by 2010 for the air to meet national health standards.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the conflict with the furniture makers marked the start of a troubled period for the AQMD.
Many businesses and conservative legislators, including Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), say the agency has harmed the region’s economic recovery. Several bills limiting the agency’s authority and giving the Legislature more control over smog issues have been introduced.
In recent months, however, many industry groups have complimented the AQMD staff and its new board leadership.
“There’s no doubt there is an improved attitude [at the AQMD] toward working with industry,” Stafford said. “We reached a fair compromise. Everybody will be relieved so we can all go back to work now.”
