Gas stations at center of new air quality debate
By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO -- California air quality regulators say a new rule targeting gasoline vapor will be a major achievement for public health, but gas station owner Ron Nuckles says the mandate will force him to turn off his pumps.
"You're going to have a lot of stations go by the wayside," Nuckles said.
Nuckles is president of Merit Oil Co. The firm has fuel stations that primarily serve commercial accounts in Westside San Bernardino, Del Rosa and Bloomington.
April 1 is the deadline for gas stations to comply with the Enhanced Vapor Recovery program, which requires stations to install new nozzles and vapor processors.
Sam Atwood, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said the technology will reduce the toxic cancer risk faced by people who live or work near gas stations.
Gasoline vapor, Atwood said, releases hydrocarbons into the air that react with nitrogen oxide and sunlight to produce ground-level ozone.
"San Bernardino is one of the ozone hot spots of the nation," Atwood said. "People are suffering each and every day."
The short-term consequences of inhaling ozone can be as simple as shortness of breath, Atwood said, but prolonged exposure to the pollutant can result in hospital visits and even premature death.
The California Air Resources Board projects the vapor controls will eventually prevent 25 tons of pollutants from entering the atmosphere daily.
The agency also reports that the necessary technology will cost gas station owners about $11,000 per pump.
Nuckles and others say the mandate is too costly to be achieved by the state's April 1 deadline, especially at a time when the economy is falling apart.
Nuckles' firm also delivers gasoline to businesses like the Hitching Post mini market in Reche Canyon. He said the cost of the new technology means that it doesn't make financial sense for stores with only a few pumps to continue to sell gasoline.
Hitching Post owner Marveen Stout said it would cost $30,000 to $40,000 to install the vapor reduction technology at her business. She has two pumps at the station and Nuckles figures that she sells about 20,000 gallons of gasoline per month.
She said she makes about a dime or a quarter for each gallon of gasoline that she sells at the Hitching Post.
"At this point, as far as I know, unless they are nice enough to give us an extension I'll have to close," she said.
He contrasted her sales with large corner gas stations that he says can sell more than 400,000 gallons of fuel per month.
Opposition to the mandate has taken the form of a group calling itself the Responsible Clean Air Coalition, which is asking for the Air Resources Board to push back the deadline for installing the vapor reduction technology until 2010.
Coalition spokesman Tom Kice said the currently most affordable technology was not available to stations until fall 2008 and that mandate could force about 8,000 California gas stations to close since the technology is unaffordable.
"People can't get loans. They can't get financing. It's just another case where bureaucrats have lost touch with reality," Kice said.
There are pending bills in the Legislature to delay the deadline, but Kice said they cannot be passed enough to spare station owners from the April 1 crunch.
Air Resources Board spokesman Dimitri Stanich said the agency will comply with any new legislation, also said station owners have known about the rule since 2000. He said pushing back the deadline would not be fair to gas stations who have already complied with the mandate.
Regulators say they are willing to work with gas stations who cannot meet the deadline, but station owners who are making good faith efforts toward compliance will not be able to escape fines.
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Has any one had trouble with the new nozzles? I can't just stick it in the fill tube and lock the handle to check oil or wash windows. That adds to the time at the islands for the next guy to wait for me to finish. I have to hold it nearly upside down and push really hard to keep the flow switch operating until full!!!
I have talked to other same vehicle owners and it is the same with their fill tubes too! Your hands get stress pains when filling 20+ gallons.
I really think the new nozzles are hard on users and could be a deterrent to staying calm while gassing up. Like in the 70s when people took their anger out on the station 's property.
High prices and Hand Cramps! Not good for the human environment. Pain in pocket and wrists!
This "Rule" requirement is not new, I found the following:
The Enhanced Vapor Recovery Program, approved in March
2000, provides a ten-year phase-in of multiple standards to reduce gasolinevapor emissions from the storage and dispensing of gasoline. Since the first
EVR Phase II system became available in April 2005, service station owners will have four years to meet the deadline. Based on the availability of equipment and information from California’s Air Pollution Control Districts on the EVR construction permits and installations, it is staff’s assessment that a majority of stations will install EVR Phase II by the deadline.
I did not find anything that talked of the necessary equipment being non-available. Many of the station owners have complied without issue.
Gasoline, Petroleum and the plastics made from it are the single largest cause of cancer in the world. This is a known fact, verified by thousands of studies which the oil industry counters by paying pundits to say: "Well, we just are not sure yet". Now are are sure. The TPH array in petroleum and petroleum products exists as microscopic particles which leach off of plastic materials, (ie: the plastic in water and baby bottles) and float in the air as vapor, (ie: the fumes around gas stations). These particles are absorbed into the body and broken down to a cellular level and then to a DNA level. As the DNA replicates, a constant process, these TPH materials cause the replication process to make mistakes and create genetic mutations. TPH is a very particular array of items so the "mistakes" that it causes occur as the same thing over and over. We call this repeating mistake: "cancer". Other materials in our environment cause other kinds of genetic mutations that do not manifest as onerous, or extremely negative, or obvious things. TPH manifests cancer.
The TPH chemical array has killed more Americans than every terrorist since the beginning of time.
The petrochemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, causes precancerous tumors and urinary tract problems and made babies reach puberty early.
Every gas pump has a label on it that oil and gas causes cancer and a host of lethal medical problems.
Archeologicial digs show that ancient peoples living near tar pits got cancer.
When there is an oil spill, you are not allowed on the beach because most agencies classify oil as toxic.
A study of childhook leukemia in England mapped every child with the diserase and found they all occurred in a circle, in the center of which was a gas station.
Living near a petrol station could quadruple the risk of childhood leukaemia, research suggested today.
The study in France found a link between cases of acute leukaemia among youngsters and how close they lived to a fuel station or a repair garage.
Research has already shown an association between adults' occupational exposure to benzene, a hydrocarbon derived from petrol, and leukaemia.
The latest study is published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The French Institute of Health and Medical Research based their findings on 280 cases of childhood leukaemia and a comparison group of 285 children.
They were drawn from four hospitals in Nancy, Lille, Lyon and Paris, with almost two-thirds of the children with leukaemia aged between two and six.
The team found no clear link between the mother's occupation during pregnancy or traffic levels around where they lived and the risk of child leukaemia.
They also saw no link between leukaemia and living near manufacturers using materials such as aluminium or plastic.
But a child whose home was near a garage was four times more likely to develop leukaemia than a child whose home was not.
The risk appeared to be even greater for acute nonlymphoblastic leukaemia, which was seven times more common among children living close to a petrol station or garage. The longer a child had lived there, the higher their risk of leukaemia appeared to be.
There are 6,600 cases of leukaemia a year in Britain. Although it is the most common form of childhood cancer, it affects three times as many adults as children.
The authors admit the findings could be due to chance. "But the strength of the association and the duration of the trend are arguments for a causal association."
Alberta’s oil sands are one of the world’s biggest deposits of oil, but the cost of extracting that oil may be the health of the people living around them. High levels of toxic chemicals and carcinogens have been found in the water, soil, and fish downstream of the oil sands. The local health authority of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta comissioned the study in response to locals’ claims that the oil extraction projects upstream were damaging the health of citizens. Petrochemicals and their byproducts, such as dioxin, are known to cause an array of serious health problems, including cancers and endocrine disruption.Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) is a term used to describe a large family of several hundred chemical compounds that originally come from crude oil. Crude oil is used to make petroleum products, which can contaminate the environment. Because there are so many different chemicals in crude oil and in other petroleum products, it is not practical to measure each one separately. However, it is useful to measure the total amount of TPH at a site.TPH is a mixture of chemicals, but they are all made mainly from hydrogen and carbon, called hydrocarbons. Scientists divide TPH into groups of petroleum hydrocarbons that act alike in soil or water. These groups are called petroleum hydrocarbon fractions. Each fraction contains many individual chemicals.
Some chemicals that may be found in TPH are hexane, jet fuels, mineral oils, benzene, toluene, xylenes, naphthalene, and fluorene, as well as other petroleum products and gasoline components. However, it is likely that samples of TPH will contain only some, or a mixture, of these chemicals. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that one TPH compound (benzene) is carcinogenic to humans. IARC has determined that other TPH compounds (benzo[a]pyrene and gasoline) are carcinogenic to humans.
Benzene causes leukemia. Benzene as a cause of leukemia had documented since 1928 (1 p. 7-9). In 1948, the American Petroleum Institute officially reported a link between this solvent used in many of their industries used and cases of leukemia in their workers. Their findings concluded that the only safe level of benzene exposure is no exposure at all (2).
The largest breast cancer incidents are in Marin County, California which is tied to the air, water and ecosphere of the Chevron Oil refinery right next door.
The oil industries spend tens of millions of dollars on fake pundits and disinformation to make sure the above information is never known by the public. Cure Cancer: Stop oil. It is a national security need in more ways than one.
Mr Leeds, Sir (if you are still there)...
Your post is very interesting. You feel we as a society should curtail our dependence on oil and all the associated bi-products. OK, Sir, what do you suggest as a replacement? OR do you suggest we regress back to the 1800's in terms of technology and ride "ole" Blue to the market, school and grandma's house with all the kids? Sir, you just can not take a country as technically advanced as the USA and tell it to stop using petroleum (products) without offering up a suitable solution in it's place.
Nuclear energy is not viable because petroleum products are used widely in the processing and controlling of this energy form. Going around today saying the sky is falling without giving out umbrellas is rather foolish and no one will listen to you. Say it loud and often enough, they just may come get you with a white coat so you don’t hurt yourself.
R B
Kudos! I was thinking as I read R L's comments, that he probably wants us to go back to bison turds and horse manure for our fire places ( oops), that causes cancer), cook on wood stoves ( oops), the charcoal causes cancer, use natural foods like tree bark and assorted array of plants (oops) Eull Gibbons , he died of eating twigs and stuff.
Wait a minute here. How about unpasturized milk products ( oops), I almost forgot why we pasturize milk!
Forget the immunizations, forget the antibiotics, but then we might not have taxes and governing boddies "sucking us dry or limiting how much freedom we are allowed to have".
By the way, it seems each week, the media comes up with the most death causing desease; and petroleum caused cancer ,wasn't on their list this week.
R L needs to contact the media post haste!
I must question the last two comments on Mr. Leads comment. Sure there are a lot of other carcinogens out there that can be contributing to cancers, but when you have research and studies supporting a radius surrounding a gas station in which children have leukemia, that is a raise of concern for that one similiar element in the equation. We should be phasing out all of these toxins that are ailing our environment so we don't have to watch close loved ones die and if that starts with gas stations then so be it. It's not an easy fix, but it appears everything is dictated by the monopoly these companies have on the world and someone needs to take control. Or you could sit back and just watch more cancer arise in loved ones. I'll pick the proactive choice and try to have a voice in helping change the future for the children of this world.