no more naptha in LA county

[Hexavalent]

"Bestine", usually found at graphic arts stores is very clean heptane - an excellent solvent/cleaner. I've used it as cleaner without seeing residue, and also as an extraction solvent.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Haha! I didnt know smog was so aromatic!

You have never been to Elizabeth New Jersey?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Absolutely.

We have the best legislators money can buy. :devil:

- Leigh

Now that is Rochester New York!

 

[BobD]

Update -

I was in an art supply store today (in California) and, lo and behold, there was naptha back on the shelf. An employee told me that California art supply stores can now legally sell naptha again due to pressure brought to bear on legislators by art supply retailer lobby group. Evidently, banning it created a hardship as it is a major part of their business as well as selling other types of thinners so they appealed and got permission to sell it in quantities up to one liter I think. Evidently this only applies to art supply stores. So, that's where Californians can buy it. For now, anyway.

 

[brucemuir]

If certain politicians get in we won't have to worry about the EPA Anymore

 

[Sirius Glass]

And if the EPA can get to the noxious politicians, we will not have to worry about the politicians anymore.

 

[PeteZ8]

The EPA has become just another arm of the government that can enforce policy without congressional oversight and without judicial review. What other branch of government has such broad authority to confiscate housing, shut down business, and administer fines without due process of law?

The Federal government really has no authority to create such an agency. Environmental regulations should be done at a state level, and, for example, should California decide that a Pennsylvania oil refinery is causing a problem in California, the matter should be taken up in federal courts.

Having said that, if L.A. county wants to ban Naptha, that is their business. If they think a few people with Zippo lighters are going to poison the city let them waste their money on such legislation and enforcement.

 

[wblynch]

Without the EPA we would all be dead from industrial pollutants.

Having lived in Southern California since the early 1950's I can assure you there has been a tremendous impact from Environmental Regulations.

There were many days back then when kids couldn't even go outside to play and you couldn't even see whole mountains just 5 miles in front of you.

Thank God, Americans had the courage and foresight to create an Environmental Protection Agency.

If you want to live in polluted filth and squalor, there are plenty of countries waiting to accept you.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Was that not mostly from automobile exhaust and not industrial pollution?

PE

 

[wblynch]

Lots of industrial pollution as well. Refineries, furniture factories, auto assembly plants. Backyard burning too. As kids everyone had an incinerator in their backyards for burning leaves, trash and papers.

I don't think anyone under 35 has a clue of what it was like.

Heck, Lake Erie caught fire.

 

[bobwysiwyg]

Actually, it was the Cuyahoga River which empties into the lake. Big motivation for the Clean Water Act.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Update -

I was in an art supply store today (in California) and, lo and behold, there was naptha back on the shelf. An employee told me that California art supply stores can now legally sell naptha again due to pressure brought to bear on legislators by art supply retailer lobby group. Evidently, banning it created a hardship as it is a major part of their business as well as selling other types of thinners so they appealed and got permission to sell it in quantities up to one liter I think. Evidently this only applies to art supply stores. So, that's where Californians can buy it. For now, anyway.

Actually in California the AQMD has much tighter rules than the EPA on air quality. The majority of Californians support the AQMD's decisions and the AQMD rarely has needed to correct a bad decision.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I just read about the 11.1% unemployment rate in CA. Wonder if it is all fo the restrictions?

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

I just read about the 11.1% unemployment rate in CA. Wonder if it is all fo the restrictions?

PE

To make the number look better the US Government decided to include the military in a state count as employed. Do you realize how many large military bases there are in California?

Also the people who have run out of unemployment benefits, those who stopped looking and those who take any courses while unemployed are not counted.

In Los Angeles County, the real number has been in the range of 18% to 22%.

Why do you think I am working in Virginia? I did not go there to work because of the climate.


Basically when the economy went down, both large and small companies could not continue to borrow money. The money flow slowed way down and businesses had to cut back. It has nothing to do with the AQMD regulations. Just the hot air coming from Congress [Progress means "going forward"; Congress means "Stop all Progress now while I drink my moldy tea."].

 

[DREW WILEY]

Has absolutely nothing to do with the EPA. This is related to smog ordinances and has been legally in
effect for almost twenty years. And is it a coincidence that the part of country doing the very best
economically at the moment has the VERY tightest "green" rules anyhere, even stricter than LA,and also is highly unionized, while the "anti-rules" counties are the ones locked into the Great Depression?
Better learn a bit more about Calif demographics before applying generalized statistics to hypothetical specifics. If you don't like the EPA, then go apply for a job flagging cropdusters on the
ground and see how long you live.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Drew;

The ecological regulations in CA are probably the tightest in the US, as we learned at EK developing new processes. Similarly tight rules apply to parts of NYC and Long Island just FYI.

I myself was referring to the reported unemployment rate in CA and just speculating that the CA rules might be driving out some businesses. For example, if they had not changed the rules about Naptha, then a lot of art supply stores would have lost business. Just a thought, nothing more.

And, as pointed out above, that 11.1% might have been larger if the gov'mnt had not changed the rules and included the military to reduce the percentage a bit.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

Has absolutely nothing to do with the EPA. This is related to smog ordinances and has been legally in
effect for almost twenty years. And is it a coincidence that the part of country doing the very best
economically at the moment has the VERY tightest "green" rules anyhere, even stricter than LA,and also is highly unionized, while the "anti-rules" counties are the ones locked into the Great Depression?
Better learn a bit more about Calif demographics before applying generalized statistics to hypothetical specifics. If you don't like the EPA, then go apply for a job flagging cropdusters on the
ground and see how long you live.

+ 1

 

[DREW WILEY]

Sorry to sound touch, Ron. But I've been heavily involved in the industrial
coating industry for decades, mostly in distribution, and know the inside
stories far better than most. Both the EPA and Air Resources Board have
come up with goofy rules at times, but overall, many many lives have been spared a premature death. Where my current office is once had dozens of paint and solvent plants within walking distance, now converted
to pharmaceuticals, biotech, and of all things, sake and beer. The former
heavy industry has moved upriver about half an hour drive, where the cancer rate it twelve times what it is here. We have not been locally immune from the recession, but recovered faster than anywhere else in
the country. Residential foreclosures are very rare around here, whereas
inland it is ground zero for the whole disaster. California no longer has a
north vs south divide, but a coastal vs inland socio-politico-economic divide. I come from the cowboy culture of the Sierra, now just a memory,
very similar to the sagebrush mentality today, but have long lived on the
coast, so understand both extremes quite well.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Wanted to add a few more details. Art stores can sell certain solvents otherwise prohibited due to the very small quantities involved. Regulations against them is more of a city ordinance to prevent substance abuse by
gluesniffer types. And I'm not totally blaming the refineries for the cancer
rate upriver, but that whole inland mentality where developers do anything
they please, and can bribe their way around anything. Those refineries were originally out in the boonies. Now they're surrounded with subdivisions, and in one case, a primary school is right across the street from one. The kids are sick all the time. That the fault of zoning easments, just like all the development going on upon unstable slopes or
behind questionable levees. Because jobs inland tend to pay rather poorly
compared to here, and developers only want to make massive cheap boxes most people can't afford, that whole bogus mortgate mess began
in the same neighborhood to allow vast numbers of unaffordable homes to sell anyway. The sheriff enforced rigged elections (he's now in prison
himself). But I don't want to make this specifically political. I can't really
think of any common solvent removed from the market that doesn't have
a reasonable and probably safer substitute. A lot of the confusion lies in
the failure to distinguish between the various completely different kinds of
naptha. We've had paint napthas pulled due to smog, but to no real effect,
because over 60% of our local pollution comes from big container ships
coming from China into the port, and are only under nonexistent internatl
rules. But heck, somebody has to keep WalMart and Home Depot in business, and keep Americans out of work!

 

[Photo Engineer]

Drew;

I could cite counter arguments as well. I guess it best left alone.

PE

 

[clayne]

Update -

I was in an art supply store today (in California) and, lo and behold, there was naptha back on the shelf. An employee told me that California art supply stores can now legally sell naptha again due to pressure brought to bear on legislators by art supply retailer lobby group. Evidently, banning it created a hardship as it is a major part of their business as well as selling other types of thinners so they appealed and got permission to sell it in quantities up to one liter I think. Evidently this only applies to art supply stores. So, that's where Californians can buy it. For now, anyway.

If you ask me, the subtle underlying movement is to get rid of anything that allows the individual actual choice or control of materials...

Trust me, if they could ban art, they would.

 

[PeteZ8]

I don't doubt the EPA has done some great things over the years. But that doesn't mean the organization is Constitutional, or that it cannot, will not, and has not been used as a way to circumvent the three Constitutional branches of government.

Think about it, the EPA can, with virtually no recourse, walk into a business and decide that the business is not in compliance with some EPA regulation. They can immediately order the business to cease operating, confiscate thousands or millions of dollars worth of equipment and supplies, and effectively put someone out of business. Same with a construction project. They can, and have walked onto a construction site that was properly permitted, declare the area wetlands, put an immediate stop to construction, administer fines, and even require the landowners to spend very large sums of money restoring the land to it's previous condition.

All of this can be done with no prior due process of law, and although some day you may win a case, by then you have spent large sums of money, your business is long gone, or you are now bankrupt and cannot finish your original project.

These are exactly the things our founders warned us about. Let me ask you this; if someone told you that the Federal government was going to create an agency that had the authority to seize land or property outside of the 4th Amendment, administer fines with no law, and function completely autonomously from the three Congressional branches, would you say they are nuts? I would, and I think most people would. But sugar coat it with something nice like "Environmental Protection" and nobody seems to notice.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Typical ignorant rant. It's the job of the EPA to protect people from poisoning, just like it's the job
of the police to protect you from getting shot by a burglar. Neither is perfect, but life would be a lot
worse without them. I've heard this kind of BS for years. Well, it's not good for business when every
last one of your employees dies prematurely of cancer and your corporation gets rightfully sued for
incredible sums of money by the families. And that has certainly happened around here by what were considered "harmless" solvents at that time, but are now regarded with horror and are downright illegal to make in any modern country. I could recite hundred of examples. You have no idea of the kinds of people I'm in contact with.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Drew;

People are going crazy in their fear of chemicals and chemistry! We are abandoning chemical eduction because of this fear! I've seen people declare chemicals "poisons" that are used internally without any severe effects and yet they are poisons. CA bans Thiourea as a carcinogen, but the common cornflower (IIRC - nut sure if I have the right wildflower here) uses thiourea in its metabolism and grows wild everywhere in CA.

And, as for wetlands, well shutting things down for the sake of endangered species is reasonable as long as it is done in a lawful manner and information hereabouts says that due process is not always observed, nor is the recover of costs very easy. In fact, the EPA can put a lot of people out of work over one poor snail darter! What is more important? The jobs of 100 - 500 construction workers or a stream used for breeding snail darters? If the job is approved, it should be judged by due process before being shut down. Etc.. Etc...

PE

 

[PeteZ8]

Thank you PE. My concerns have nothing to do with environmental issues and everything to do with the scope of the agencies authoirty, and thus the ability for abuse.

There are ways to protect the environment that respect the principle of due process. I think it is ignorant to assume I would like no environmental oversight. That would be obviously foolish. You're arguing environment while I'm talking about politics.