Gal ifornia wood treater calls in reinforcements

fr's uevnn BEEN EASv being a wood treater in regulationIheavy California, and earlier this year the state threw an exceptionally wild curveball at California Cascade Industries over the level of volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by its prestaining operations.

Cal Cascade's VOC problems started with a visit to its Fontana, Ca., plant by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties. AQMD claims to have "the strictest paint and coatings standards in the nation."

Companies doing business in the AQMD are allotted 4 tons of VOC emissions per year, which amounts to 667 lbs. of emissions per month, or 22 lbs. per day. If a business needs to exceed that cap, it must purchase offsets at an approximate cost of $l,500 to $2900 per lb. per day.

Whenever a business in the AQMD wants to add a process or modify an existing process that has the potential to increase emissions, that business must demonstrate that the new process will not cause the business to exceed its cap limit, or the business must purchase offsets.

Until January, Cal Cascade-Fontana was not required to include its staining operation in its VOC emissions allotment. "However," said plant manager Robyn Ueberroth, "in the two years between visits by the AQMD, prestaining has become 60Vo of our wood treating production." oseburg is one of the lorgest ond nrost diverse nrcrnufociurers of lun-rber, :fiwood plywood ond engineered wood producis in North Arlerics. Our rtegrcrted nronu{octuring focilities ore sio}s e{ the ort, uiilizing lhe most dvanced technology lo produce high quoliiy wood producls {or ihe building onstruclion induslry. pecial opportuniiies avoilcrble io NAWLA nrembers sn the following products:

The AQMD official determined that Cal Cascade's increased level of stain consumption now represented a potential compliance issue. Although the water-based wood stain was already an extremely low VOC product, it appeared to contain sufficient VOCs to push Cal Cascade over its emissions threshold.

Ueberroth immediately contacted Bruce Armbruster of JE Compliance Services, a full-service regulatory compliance consulting firm. For six years, Armbruster has been helping Cal Cascade with the planning, permitting and reporting required to ensure regulatory compliance. Armbruster evaluated the situation and confirmed that its current low-VOC wood stain would indeed push Cal Cascade beyond its VOC cap limit. The plant needed to slash its VOC emissions by 807o.

At that point, Cal Cascade's options appeared grim. Simply eliminating its staining operation was out of the question. "If we had not been able to stain," Ueberroth says, "it would hurt us drastically because the industry is demanding prestained product."

Other options for reducing the stain's VOC emissions consisted primarily of prohibitively expensive mechanical alternatives.

While Armbruster began to write an application for a permit that would enable Cal Cascade to continue its staining operations, Ueberroth called Mark Cheirrett, president and technical director of its wood stain provider, Eco Chemical. Cheirrett said his R&D team could significantly lower the VOCs on the stain Cal Cascade was currently using-while maintaining its color, ease of use, and UV protection. And, because Eco Chemical's in-house chemists had already been researching a lower VOC stain, he thought they could have a solution in a matter of weeks.

It took two weeks for Eco Chemical's research team to modify the formula for Cal Cascade's stain. The stain was sent to Dr. Dane Jones at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Polymers & Coatings Program for analytical testing and validation of the VOC estimate. A short time later, Dr. Jones reported that the modified stain had indeed reduced VOCs to 3 lbs. per day, an 807o reduction.

In Armbruster's words, "Eco came through with a product that allowed Cal Cascade to continue to meet its production demands without purchasing offsets. Because the new Eco stain has very low VOCs (60 lbs. per month), if Cal Cascade manages its usage carefully, the company may be exempt from a permit requirement in the future."

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