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Letter to the Editor

Looming Deadline

Initial registration by shops is due next month under an EPA regulation that also calls for booths, HVLP, and painter certification.

By this time next month, every collision repair shop in the country must have filed a special notification with the federal Environmental Pro-tection Agency (EPA) or their local environmental agency.

The notification is the first of several deadlines for shops under a new EPA automotive refinishing and stripping regulation finalized some years ago that has a complete compliance deadline of March 2011.

If there was a single topic that seemed to permeate discussion in meetings, and even on the trade show floor at NACE last month, the new EPA regulation was it. EPA speakers gave presentations and press conferences throughout the week, and compliance information and even hands-on spray gun techniques were offered at sessions inside the NACE Educational Theater.

Here’s a primer on what shops and their suppliers need to understand about the new regulation.

What is required?

When the new regulation was finalized in 2007, most EPA-watchers in the industry viewed it relatively positively.

Bob Redding, national lobbyist for the Automotive Service Association (ASA), said it seemed reasonable in terms of equipment, training, and enforcement, and that while many shops would already be in compliance with the proposed new rules, the regulations would raise the bar for those not adequately protecting the environment.

“We know there are people out there painting who are not doing it in a spray booth with proper training, for example,” Redding said at the time. “We’re hopeful this will lift them up and raise the industry standard.”

The new regulation is a result of the Clean Air Act of 1990, which requires the EPA to identify sources that emit one or more of the 188 listed toxic air pollutants. Specifically included in the regulation are stricter requirements for “area sources” engaged in paint stripping or various surface coating operations, including autobody refinishing.

Area sources affected by the rule will need to implement equipment and management practices to comply with the new standards, if they have not already done so. But the practices are designed to reduce overall toxic material consumption, which generally results in a savings to the business as well.

The regulation places a number of requirements on collision repair shops. In terms of training, shops will be responsible for ensuring all painters have completed hands-on training in the proper application of surface coatings. The training must cover specific items such as spray gun setup, surface prep, spray booth and filter maintenance, transfer efficiency, and environmental compliance. Painters must be certified (the shop owner “certifies” the training was received) within 180 days of hire, and they must be recertified every five years.

In terms of equipment, all painting of vehicles must be done in a spray booth (or, in the case of painting of some vehicle parts, a prep station) that meets the regulation’s requirements. The booth, for example, must be fully enclosed with four complete walls and a full roof, and use a filter system fitted with polyester fiber or fiberglass filters (or the equivalent) that capture at least 98 percent capture of paint overspray. Compliance for spray booth filter efficiency can be satisfied through data provided by the filter manufacturer.

Prep stations must have a full roof, at least three complete walls or complete side curtains, and must be ventilated so that air is drawn into the booth.

The regulation also requires that all spraying of coatings be done with a high-volume, low-pressure (HVLP) spray gun (or in some way that has an equivalent transfer efficiency).

All paint spray gun cleaning must be done either with solvents that do not contain the hazardous air pollutants, or within a fully-enclosed spray gun cleaner. Hand cleaning of parts with solvent is permitted but spraying solvent through the gun is prohibited.

The proposed regulation also spells out what the anticipated costs of compliance are. The EPA’s estimated cost for training, for example, is $1,000 per painter, which covers tuition costs and labor cost for 16 hours of training time. This cost could be offset, the EPA estimates, over five years through a one percent reduction in the amount of coatings sprayed. The EPA calculates that training and use of HVLP spray equipment should reduce materials use sufficiently to offset any such initial investment. The regulation points to data from one study that indicated painters completing the spray technique training decreased the amount of coating sprayed by about 20 percent per job.

By January 10, 2010, shops will need to submit an initial notification stating whether they are already in compliance with the requirements or that they plan to be in compliance by the required date. Any shop indicating it is not yet in compliance must report by January of 2011 that they will be in compliance by March of 2011. Annual compliance reports will only need to be submitted if there is a change in any of the initial notification information.

While there are no federal fees involved in the new regulation, state environmental agencies in some cases have enacted more strict requirements or, more commonly, made the registration and federal requirements part of a local or state permitting process. This permit may involve a fee to the state agency.

Exempting yourself?

Are any collision repair operations exempt from compliance with the regulation? There are exemptions for “hobbyists,” but if you spray more than two of your own cars, or even one car in exchange for compensation, you are subject to the regulation. Much to the chagrin of many in the industry, scratch-and-dent operators can still spray in the open provided they are using a spray cup that holds three ounces or less.

Collision repair shops that also use no spray products (for painting or stripping) that contain the five heavy metals (cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese, and nickel) targeted in the regulation could also be exempted from the regulation. Whether this is a good approach to take was a matter of some debate during NACE-week meetings in Las Vegas last month.

During the Collision Industry Conference (CIC), for example I-CAR regional manager Gene Lopez said that even though the paint companies have or are removing the heavy metals from their products (yellow and orange toners, for example, have often contained lead), shops may have older or other hazard-containing products that could show-up in any subsequent testing of booth filters.

“You had better be ready for an inspection, because saying ‘We’re exempt,’ is probably the biggest red flag you can send up to the EPA to say, ‘You had better go check these guys out,’” Lopez said. “To me, the exemption is not the answer. It’s too easy to comply.”

But 24 hours later at a Society of Collision Repair Specialists’ open board meeting, Tony Pendola of the North Carolina Small Business Environmental Assistance Program, said that although collision repair shops are “guilty until proven innocent as far as the EPA is concerned with this rule,” they shouldn’t rule out going for an exemption.

“Just like there are exemptions to the tax laws, there are exemptions to this, and I don’t fault you if you use them,” Pendola said. “They were put in the rule for a reason. Take advantage of them. Some shops are just going to say, ‘We’ve got the booth. We’ve got all this stuff. We’ll just go ahead and be subject (to the regulation).’ If it were me, I’d rather not be subject (to the regulation) and still do all the right things.”

What enforcement of the regulation will look like is anyone’s guess. But speaking at a joint press conference with Holly Wilson, who is leading the EPA’s collision repair campaign, ASA’s Ron Pyle called for serious and public enforcement.

“In front of all of you today, I’m going to encourage Holly to conduct sting operations,” Pyle said, saying that such efforts enforcing other automotive environmental regulations in the past have been “visible and well-publicized activities that put the fear in the general repair marketplace that this can happen to you if you don’t comply.”

EPA offers help with new regulations

One of the EPA’s key message during NACE appeared to be the many sources of help available for shops looking for more information about complying with the new requirements. Those sources include:

• The EPA’s “Collision Repair Campaign” website (www.epa.gov/collisionrepair), which offers a summary of the regulation, a 19-minute video featuring NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, and information on free workshops about the rule throughout the country.
• I-CAR (www.i-car.com) offers an hour-long online training course explaining the regulation and the products that fall under it, as well as tips and techniques for reducing the amount of hazardous products used.
• The EPA has ”Small Business Complaints Assistance Programs” (www.epa.gov/smallbusiness) in most states with staffs that offer confidential, non-regulatory help for business owners working to comply with environmental regulations.   o

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