04/29/2001

Air scare

Downwind of Monaco's Coburg factory, residents live on edge

By Joe Harwood
The Register-Guard

COBURG - For residents on the east side of Coburg, opening a window to
let a breeze blow through the house can be a risky proposition.

And working in the yard can be outright intolerable.

The reason: Hazardous chemical fumes coming from nearby paint-spray
booths at Monaco Coach Corp.'s recreational vehicle factory.

"It's an invisible cloud that you can taste," said Dick Brown, who lives
next to the plant. "It's a metallic taste that irritates your throat."

Brown has a front-row seat on the action. The painting building, completed in 1999, is 60 yards north of Brown's 6-year-old Shaker-style home and its wraparound porch. Just the other side of a small creek and rising above the blooming magnolia trees in Brown's yard are Monaco's shiny metal stacks and humming fans that shoot the stinky fumes into the air.

"The end result is it drives you inside," said Brown, an inventor, author and Olympic track coach. "You're basically under house arrest."

All told, the painting facility and Monaco's other operations at its Coburg complex emit about 130 tons of hazardous fumes a year.

The emissions - toluene, styrene, xylenes, ethyl benzene and other
malodorous chemicals - can make life outdoors unpleasant for neighbors.
Many liken the pervasive smell to nail polish, or to the familiar odor left by freshly
applied household spray paints and varnishes.

The fumes have prompted a bitter legal dispute, with 25 residents earlier
this year suing Monaco in U.S. District Court, alleging trespass and
nuisance and seeking $33 million. Monaco says it is breaking no laws but adds that it
wants to fix the problem. Residents and the Lane Regional Air Pollution
Authority want Monaco to install an incinerator that would burn up and essentially
eliminate the fumes. Monaco says that's unnecessary, not legally
required, and, at $7 million or more, too expensive.

The case isn't likely to go to trial for a year or two.

The battle is among the most severe over air pollution in Lane County in
many years.

And it's not just the plaintiffs who are angry. Many other Coburg
residents say they, too, are upset by Monaco's fumes.

"I wasn't feeling real good"

The first time the fumes hit Brian Pech, who lives immediately south of Monaco, he was working in the yard on his day off.

"At first I thought I was smelling paint from somebody painting in the neighborhood," Pech said. "The longer I worked in the yard, the more I realized I needed to get inside because I wasn't feeling real good."

Pech, along with his wife and their six children, ages 4 to 16, have lived in a small subdivision immediately south of Monaco's campus since 1997.

The odors aren't constant, varying with wind direction, time of year and the volume of RVs Monaco is painting on any given day, said Pech, who manages a grocery store in Eugene. Summer is the worst, he said.

Homeowners near the plant say the fumes started wafting through their
neighborhoods in the late summer of 1999, soon after Monaco finished
construction of its new paint facility, part of an expansion to increase RV
production.

Before that, residents say, Monaco had been an excellent neighbor and a good corporate citizen. Much of the company's production and painting was done farther north and east on its campus, away from homes.

"Until they actually started the expansion, you couldn't really tell they were there," Pech said. "They didn't make a lot of noise."

But the expansion filled the southwest corner of Monaco's campus with the spray booth building nestling right up next to the new subdivision.

After complaining to Monaco and to local, state and federal authorities for more than a year with little or no improvement, residents who live in or near the 5-year-old subdivision - including Brown and Pech - sued.

Some longtime residents are just as unhappy.

Virginia Beebe, who was born and raised in Coburg and serves on its City Council, has lived in the same house about two blocks southwest of the paint building since 1962.

"I used to keep the windows on the north side of my house open for ventilation," Beebe said. "Now I can't do that because it (the fumes) makes me sick."

Barbara Pettit, who has lived in the same house a few blocks south of the plant for 19 years, said the odors scare away any would-be home buyers. "People around here can't sell their homes," Pettit said. "No one wants to buy because of the smell."

Jim Lockard, a retired Eugene School District teacher, lives more than a half-mile south of the Monaco plant, just outside the Coburg city limits. His 1-acre spread includes a well-landscaped yard with a pond full of large goldfish.

Lockard, an asthmatic, said he can't go outside when the fumes drift down to his place. "It makes you gag," he said. "You definitely know you've been hit."

Good neighbor?

Monaco, for its part, has tried to cut the odors by modifying its paint mixtures, raising the emission stacks on its paint-booth building and installing fans to try to push the fumes higher into the air.

Those steps haven't helped, say neighbors and local air officials.

"All that did was spread the fumes over more of the town," Pettit said.

Monaco says it plans to take additional steps by the end of July to reduce the chemical odors, and, the company hopes, stop the complaints.

"We want to be a good neighbor, and we're working toward that goal," said Monaco spokesman Mike Duncan. "We don't like having this animosity with the neighbors."

Some appreciate Monaco's efforts, while others say the company has been slow to respond, worrying more about its bottom line than about residents living downwind.

"Monaco is good people," Lockard said. "When the paint problem came up, they started with the least expensive fixes and worked their way up," he said.

"I don't begrudge them that, because it shows they are trying to be a good neighbor."

Yet even Lockard, with his moderate tone and his concern that too much complaining could alienate Monaco, said the company should fix the problem by installing an incinerator.

"Monaco has to control this as a good neighbor, and the town has to find ways to help them out," Lockard said.

"If I were Monaco looking toward the future, I'd go to the greatest extent I could as quick as I could to fix this," he added. "This town never forgets, so we have to find a solution before this thing gets out of hand."

Brown said he's lost patience with Monaco.

"In October (2000), when the pollution problem wasn't solved, they said they would take appropriate action," Brown said. "We're still waiting.

"That company had over $40 million in profits last year," he added. "Those profits came partly at the expense of our lungs."

Little sympathy

Joe Morneau, a former city councilor and a Coburg resident since 1958, looks at the problem another way.

"This group of people who moved in next to Monaco took time to find a quiet bedroom community to live in," Morneau said.

"Yet they chose to buy next to an established manufacturing plant," Morneau said. "Now they are complaining, and I question their logic. What did they think was going to happen?"

Lockard, who has lived in his house more than a half mile south of Monaco for 15 years, doesn't accept that argument.

"Some people say 'They knew Monaco was there before they bought their houses and it's tough luck.' That's bull ... we have young kids over there who can't go outside to play," Lockard said.

Pech and others worry about the effects of the fumes on about 20 children who live in the subdivision.

"Mom and I know what effects we feel when we breathe (the fumes)," Pech said. "If I'm getting a headache and not feeling good, I know it's not good for them."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies toluene, xylenes, styrene and ethyl benzene as hazardous. Toluene and xylenes, for example, can cause headaches and nausea. Styrene and ethyl benzene can bring on eye and throat irritation as well as respiratory problems.

But no legally enforceable limits exist for these chemicals in neighborhoods. A consultant for Monaco sampled the air in the neighborhood for a day in December and found traces of the chemicals far below any suggested danger levels.

That doesn't satisfy residents.

"With the amount of kids in the neighborhood, you'd think it would be noisy, but it's not," Pech said. "It's real quiet until Monaco's fans shut down for the night. Then kids come out, and it gets noisy."

Angry neighbors and Monaco supporters alike note the thousands of jobs the company provides and its financial donations to civic activities.

"We want them there because they help the town and provide jobs, but we want the odors gone," Brown said. "We don't want to hamper their operations ... but they are hampering our operations."

Public nuisance

As complaints piled up at the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority - about 600 complaints have been filed by residents against Monaco to date - the agency has worked with Monaco to find a solution.

Monaco is allowed to vent its fumes under its federal permit, but LRAPA has the authority to declare Monaco a public nuisance because of the fumes. Such a declaration, if it survived the inevitable legal challenges, could force Monaco to install incinerators.

"I haven't done that yet because I want to find an engineering solution by working with (Monaco) in good faith," said Brian Jennison, LRAPA's director.

Jennison said deciding what does - and does not - constitute a public
nuisance under LRAPA's rules is highly subjective.

On one hand, nearby homeowners have a right to enjoy their property. On
the other hand, Monaco has an equal right to conduct manufacturing on its
property, which is zoned for industrial use.

"If you live next to an industrial facility, you are from time to time
going to be exposed to industrial odors," Jennison said.

Other Lane County residents who live near industry - Weyerhaeuser Co.'s linerboard plant in Springfield and even the Williams Bakery in Eugene, for example - catch a whiff now and then.

Jennison said he will continue to push Monaco toward an odor-free operation, and may eventually have to cite the company as a nuisance. "But we're not at
that point yet," he said.

Joe Harwood covers business news. Call 338-2364 or e-mail
jharwood@guardnet.com.

Saturday: In the absence of government restrictions, RV factories have
become some of the biggest toxic air polluters in Lane County

Today: Living next to the Monaco Coach Corp. factory in Coburg is no
breeze