New Regulations Cut Number of House Paints for Five States

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A new set of regulations intended to limit releases of VOCs -- or volatile organic compounds, one of the primary causes of smog -- has nearly cut off the supply of oil-based paints available in Pennsylvania and four other states.

As people wander into home stores to find that perfect shade of paint for their summer remodeling project, they may have fewer options than they were expecting.


A new set of regulations intended to limit releases of VOCs -- or volatile organic compounds, one of the primary causes of smog -- has nearly cut off the supply of oil-based paints available in Pennsylvania and four other states. The state adopted the new regulations in 2002 but they took effect at the start of this year.


Stores, painters and contractors were allowed to sell off what supplies they had on hand, but six months into the year that means its getting a little tough to find a one-gallon can of oil-based paint anywhere. "We still have a little, but it isn't going to last much longer," Bucky Krzemienski, who works at Kelly Hardware, 1900 Seventh Ave. in Beaver Falls. "It's getting harder and harder to find it anywhere."


The group behind the new regulations is the Ozone Transport Commission, an agency set up by Congress a decade ago to help manage air quality in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, including Pennsylvania. The group has no regulatory powers but it makes recommendations to member states, which then have the option of implementing the OTC's proposals.


In this case, the commission said, it put together a set of proposals to help reduce VOCs emitted from consumer products. VOCs interact with nitrous oxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and sunlight to product what scientists call ground-level ozone. The rest of us just call it smog.


Oil-based paints aren't specifically banned in the state's newly effective rules, but because the rule sets a very small limit of VOCs that can be present in paint, it takes gallon-sized cans off the market, although smaller cans can still be sold.


"But that can be an expensive thing to get into if you're painting a couple rooms or something," Krzemienski said. "It's not much of an alternative."


Skip Miles, owner of One Way Painting in Chippewa Township, said he gave up on using oil-based products on interior jobs a while ago, but not because of the ban. Instead, he set them aside after personally feeling the effects the fumes from oil-based paints can have. "I had just finished painting a small breezeway, and the fumes really got to me," Miles said.


"I passed out right there." Miles now uses oil-based products only on exterior jobs -- and only when he's wearing a respirator. And though he warns people about the dangers, he said some won't budge from their preference for oil-based products. "I think that's something of a myth, but some people don't want to hear it," he said.


Ozone Transport Commission officials say reformulated products that the paint industry developed when California adopted similar restrictions years ago should be available here soon, if they aren't already.


Miles said he has yet to see some of the alternative products, but Krzemienski, whose store is a Benjamin Moore Paints dealer, said his supplier has been getting reformulated paints to the Beaver Falls store. "We're seeing them already," Krzemienski said. "We just have to get people pointed towards those when we can."


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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News