By William J. Kelly

LOS ANGELES, California, November 21, 2002 (ENS) - Fifteen years after California legislators voted to require that state residents be notified of the cancer risk from toxic air pollution released by industries, scores of metal plating companies in Southern California continue to emit cancer causing air pollution at levels largely unknown to their neighbors.

By contrast, in the San Francisco Bay Area, air pollution control authorities required metal plating operations to notify people of any cancer risk and to reduce that risk during the 1990s. "We worked with them to reduce their risk," said Brian Batemen, a manager at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

In the Los Angeles area, however, regulators at the South Coast Air Quality Management District took a different tack, lumping in the industrial facilities with common commercial businesses, including thousands of dry cleaners and gasoline stations it considered too numerous and small to deal on their own with the complicated health risk assessment and notification requirements of the law.

The result is that chrome plating facilities, many of which service the aircraft industry and other major manufacturers, have been able to avoid notifying their neighbors of legally "significant" cancer risks for more than a decade.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District's procedure for administering the 1987 Air Toxics "Hot Spots" Information and Assessment Act, and a later 1992 toxic risk reduction law, effectively has allowed the industry to escape the cancer risk limit imposed on other industries in much of polluted Southern California.

Size Control Plating Company (Photo courtesy California Environment Report)

Basset Unified School District officials have been concerned for years with odors and emissions from another facility, Light Metals, which is immediately adjacent to the south end of the middle school campus, according to district superintendent Robert Nero. "I was concerned about the odor at the plant, and I contacted AQMD, and they have been monitoring the company since that time," he said.

But air district officials never mentioned the cancer-causing hexavalent chromium emissions emanating from the metal plating facility just south of Light Metals, Nero said. Nor has the company informed the school district, he said.

Company officials could not be reached for comment.

Size Control Plating is not alone. It is one of 15 metal plating firms that the South Coast air district estimates emit enough hexavalent chromium and other toxic compounds to impose a cancer risk on their nearest neighbor greater than 100 in a million.

The district's cancer risk limit is 25 in a million, a level tightened in 2000 from the 100 in a million standard the agency initially set in 1994.

In addition, 61 out of 135 metal plating companies that use chrome in the Los Angeles area have avoided providing notice of cancer risk under the 1987 law to their neighbors. Any facility that exceeds a cancer risk of 10 in a million is supposed to provide notification to their neighbors.

The lack of notice and cleanup at chrome plating operations stems from a decision the South Coast Air Quality Management District made more than a decade ago about how to administer the toxic emissions disclosure and reduction laws.

At that time, the agency chose to treat metal plating facilities the same way as common neighborhood businesses, which it reasoned were too numerous and too small to individually assess their own health risk and notify their neighbors if warranted. Instead, the agency assessed the risk posed by typical operations and then moved to tighten enforcement and regulations to reduce that risk.

Officials in the San Francisco Bay Area handled gas stations and dry cleaners in the same manner. But today in the Bay Area, the air district has reported that there are no facilities operating - large or small - that emit enough toxic pollution to pose a cancer risk to their neighbors greater than 100 in a million. "All of the platers got down to below 10 in a million," said Bateman.

After analyzing the cancer risk of metal plating operations in the Los Angeles area, the South Coast air district has developed a proposal to tighten the emissions standards for the metal plating industry. "Many of the facilities are over the 25 in a million our board has set as an action level," said Jill Whynot, planning and rules manager for the district.

The South Coast air district proposal - which would give the industry until 2004 to reduce its risk - was expected to come before the agency's governing board for consideration next month, but has been delayed until February to allow for further discussions with the industry in the district's "negotiated" rulemaking process, which is aimed at developing a consensus among "stakeholders."

"We're taking a little longer to go through the negotiated rule process," Whynot explained.

Meanwhile, Torch Principal Joe Medina says that the school, which is surrounded by industries, "is committed to the establishment of a safe, clean, and orderly environment."

To see a list of chrome plating firms in violation of the cancer risk regulations issued by The South Coast Air Quality Management District on October 29, log onto: http://www.southlandreports.com/112102Story1.htm

{Published in cooperation with California Environment Report}