California air regulators voted Thursday to ban the use of a highly toxic metal for restoring classic car parts, protecting aviation components and producing a lustrous metallic finish for a variety of consumer products.
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From car bumpers to kitchen faucets, hexavalent chromium, known as chrome-6, has given a range of consumer products a gleaming decorative shine. It also provides critical aviation components like airplane landing gear with a durable, rust-resistant coating.
Although hardened chrome is harmless, the fumes from the plating process ' 500 times more toxic than diesel exhaust ' increase cancer risk in many disadvantaged communities across the state, according to California regulators.
To reduce the health risks associated with this exposure, the California Air Resources Board adopted a first-of-its-kind rule for the chrome-plating industry to phase out the use of chrome-6 for decorative purposes by no later than and for essential functions by .
'Hexavalent chromium, in my opinion, needs to go in the dustbin with the other dangerous industrial chemicals that we as a modern society have decided we're not going to use anymore,' said Gideon Kracov, a CARB board member. 'Leaded gasoline in cars. Chlorofluorocarbons in our atmosphere. PCBs and dioxin. Volatile organic compounds in paint.'
The rule was lauded by clean air advocates who argued that disadvantaged communities would reap tremendous health benefits, especially in Southern California. Los Angeles County ' a bastion of classic car enthusiasts and aerospace companies ' has the largest concentration of chrome platers in the nation.
Industry leaders and business owners condemned the vote, calling it the death knell for metal-finishing operations in California. The vote, they said, will result in the outmigration of jobs and essential services to states with less stringent environmental standards.
'It's going to render my business worthless,' said Art Holman, owner of Sherm's Custom Plating, a car customization business in Sacramento. 'My employees will be unemployed. Forty-three years down the drain. My entire business has worked until this [rule] passes and then my property is a hazardous waste facility.'
The metal finishing industry had tried to negotiate stricter emission controls instead of an outright ban. They argued that their facilities generated only a small fraction of the state's total chrome-6 emissions, and that oil refining operations and cars and trucks produced far more.
However, the state argued that chrome platers significantly increased chrome-6 emissions near their operations, presenting a considerable risk to communities nearby.
In California, there are more than 110 chrome-plating facilities. About 55% of these are within 1,000 feet of homes or schools, according to CARB.
The state's original proposal called for decorative platers to stop using chrome-6 in . However, an amendment gave these operations an additional three years if they install building enclosures that would limit toxic fumes escaping from their operations.
State officials hope the new rule will compel businesses to switch to trivalent chromium, a far less toxic alternative, which has been available as a substitute since the early s. However, trivalent chromium has not been widely used in the decorative plating industry because its darker color is similar to stainless steel, an aesthetic that has not appealed to California car enthusiasts striving to mimic the high-gloss sheen of 20th century models.
For California's aerospace industry, trivalent chromium hasn't been proved to meet Department of Defense specifications. But the state hopes this will propel more research in the coming years.
In any case, the transition away from chrome-6 won't be cheap.
The state estimates it will cost around $40 million for decorative platers to transition. It could cost as much as $648 million to transition the larger chrome platers that need industrial-grade coatings for such products as aircraft components.
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Southern California remains synonymous with classic and customized cars of yesteryear, from hot rods to lowriders. Some CARB officials acknowledged they enjoy car culture, including board member V. Manuel Perez, who was born and raised in the Coachella Valley.
'I like lowriders '' Perez said. 'I love that stuff because I grew up with that culture. But I also understand the balance here that we have to commit to.'
California finishers will be prohibited from using hexavalent chromium in their operations after a state board voted to ban the naturally-occurring element from production.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted on May 25 to update its rules on airborne toxins that will phase out the use of hex chrome by chrome plating and chromic anodizing facilities, starting with its use for decorative purposes where it says safer alternatives are now available.
Decorative platers will be banned from using hex chrome in or if they install air safety measures. Functional chrome platers will have to stop using it by .
Numerous finishers attended the CARB hearing to express their continued frustration that they are being singled out by state officials and that the industry releases less than 1% of all hex chrome into the air in the state.
'It's going to render my business worthless,' says Art Holman, who owns Sherm's Custom Plating in Sacramento. 'My employees will be unemployed; 43 years down the drain. My entire business has worked until this passes, and then my property is a hazardous waste facility.'
Bryan Leiker, the Executive Director of the Metal Finishing Association of California, told the CARB members before the vote that the new rules are unfair to the finishing industry because they rely on faulty data that doesn't reflect the self-regulations that platers have already put into place.
'Decorative chrome platers now have options to transition to less toxic alternatives without sacrificing quality or function."
'The issue we have here is that our industry, of course, is in agreement with fair regulation,' Leiker says. 'But what we have here is a ban. This is just a universal ban across the whole industry.'
Some finishers were upset that they were only allotted two minutes to address the CARB members before the vote was taken.
Alan Olick, owner of General Brite Plating in Los Angeles, says he wrote out four pages of comments to speak about to try to dissuade CARB from voting on the ban.
'Oh, come on, that's not right,' Olick said when he was told his time was up. 'I strongly object. I've spent my career donating to the community and paying taxes, and here you're trying to stop metal finishing industry and you're telling me I can't speak? I drove two hours to get here.'
CARB says there are 110 facilities in California that use hexavalent chromium but that many are located near 'often disadvantaged communities that face other environmental and air pollution burdens.'
'Many of the communities that house chrome plating facilities are also next to other polluting industries and heavily trafficked freeways and trucking routes, and any step we can take to protect their health and improve their air quality is important,' says Liane Randolph, CARB Chair. 'Decorative chrome platers now have options to transition to less toxic alternatives without sacrificing quality or function, and we are eager to continue working with those who are currently developing ways to transition to safer options for functional purposes.'
Under the new CARB rules, decorative chrome platers will have two paths to transition away from hexavalent chromium: those who opt to meet the deadline will have first access to financial incentive programs to assist with the transition to trivalent chromium, while those who opt to wait until to phase out hexavalent chromium will need to implement building enclosure requirements by to reduce fugitive emissions and may have less grant funding available for their transition.
The amendments also require that businesses meet best practice measures ' such as spill prevention and enhanced cleanup of hexavalent chromium ' by .
Functional chrome plating facilities ' which include hard chrome plating and chromic acid anodizing that is used for products such as aircraft parts ' will be required to implement building enclosure requirements and best practice measures by to reduce fugitive emissions. In and , CARB says it will conduct technology reviews to assess the development of alternative technologies available prior to the phase-out of hexavalent chromium for functional chrome plating in .
'The California Legislature has indicated plans to allocate $10 million as part of the upcoming budget process to help chrome platers with the cost of transitioning to trivalent chromium plating, a safer alternative that has been used for decorative chrome plating applications for decades,' CARB says in a statement.
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