Camarillo Firm Says Its Anti-Smog Efforts Give It More Freedom

CAMARILLO â€”  The success of a Camarillo company in pioneering a new federal anti-smog program could help Ventura County lure high-tech companies that must react quickly to an ever-changing electronics market, officials said Thursday.

One of eight companies selected for a 1995 environmental initiative by President Clinton, the 650-employee Imation plant in Camarillo, an independent offshoot of the giant 3M company, has created its own unique plan to cut smog below legal requirements while shedding bureaucratic red tape.

Now, after working with local and state air pollution control officials for a year and a half, Imation is claiming success in operating under a set of rules that gives it greater freedom to change manufacturing operations than just about any other company in the nation.

Company and county officials said in a round-table discussion Thursday that this type of cooperation between regulators and the corporations they govern could be an advantage in bringing new electronics businesses to the area. Several have expressed interest and followed Imation’s progress, officials said.

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Even local companies that do not necessarily need to change as quickly, such as paper-products manufacturer Procter & Gamble in Oxnard, is interested in the concept, a spokesman said.

“This plan has been tough [to create] because it was trailblazing,� said county Supervisor Judy Mikels, past chairwoman of the county’s pollution control board. “But this is where I believe government is going to have to go in the future.�

In particular, high-tech companies such as Imation can benefit from custom-made plans that allow them to be more nimble in an industry defined by how quickly innovations become obsolete, she said.

Under Imation’s pilot program, approved by the Board of Supervisors last fall and now before the Environmental Protection Agency for review, the company has pledged to keep the emission of hydrocarbons--a key component of smog--under 150 tons a year, well below the 263 tons its county permit allows.

In exchange, the company does not have to ask government permission to revamp plant operations--a process that can take many months--when market conditions dictate a change.

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Charles Byrne, manager of the Camarillo plant for Minnesota-based Imation, said the increased flexibility helped the company create a new range of products that accounted for 50% of its growth last year.

“It was critical to our success,� he said.

Some local environmentalists, however, say the key aspect of the Imation plan is whether Ventura County’s air will get cleaner as a result. Although improving each year, county ozone pollution, a colorless component of smog, is still fifth worst in the nation.

Critics say air quality will not improve unless the county Air Pollution Control District “retires� all 113 tons of hydrocarbon emission credits that Imation has given back to the county.

“This isn’t wonderful unless they can show actual emission reductions in the air from the use of these credits,� said Pat Baggerly, a director of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County.

And John Buse, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Center in Ventura, said he prefers the restrictions of existing federal regulations to the innovations proposed by Imation under the so-called Project XL initiative by Clinton.

“We’re more comfortable with the mechanisms being achieved under existing law,� Buse said, “because I think the Clean Air Act has shown the means to solve the problems without these trade-offs.�

Richard Baldwin, chief county air pollution control officer, said that under the Imation plan, 58 of the 113 tons of pollution credits the company has given up will be done away with. The other 55 will be sold to new companies coming into the county at market rate--about $20,000 to $25,000 a ton--and the proceeds used to clean the air.

Among the projects on which that $1.1 million to $1.4 million could be spent would be subsidies to help companies convert their vehicle fleets from gas-burning to use of cleaner fuels such as natural gas and electricity, he said.

Baldwin said he expects EPA approval of the Imation plan by April and has heard nothing negative. “We’ll probably have to come back and fine-tune it,� he added.

But Baggerly said a preliminary review of the proposal by EPA officials notes several inconsistencies with federal law.

She also maintained that Imation emits only about 28 tons of hydrocarbons a year and would probably never have used its permitted 263 tons. As a result, the sale of 55 tons of excess emissions to new companies would convert potential emissions that were never likely to occur to actual emissions that pollute the air, Baggerly said.

Baldwin said he thinks that county skies can be clean enough to meet federal standards by 2005, as required by law.

Compared to the early 1970s, when the county violated federal air quality standards 122 days in one year, it violated the standard just 17 days in 1996, he said.