Convenience store chain faces pollution fines

Wednesday, June 26, 2002 | 11:04 a.m.

7-Eleven, the ubiquitous purveyors of Cokes, smokes and gasoline, is in trouble with local authorities concerned that the company might also have given us something we did not want -- air pollution, or at least a failure to comply with local pollution laws.

The company faces up to $740,000 in fines for failure to test the performance of gasoline pumps, which by law are supposed to be equipped with mechanisms to control the release of gas fumes.

But negotiations with the Clark County Air Quality Management Division and District Attorney's office have reduced the proposed penalty to just $20,000 -- a 97 percent reduction. The company, however, has agreed to correct the problem.

According to Air Quality Management, the violations occurred at four Las Vegas area convenience stores in 2000. Each store was assessed a "recommended penalty" of $185,000 before the negotiations knocked the proposed penalties down. The problems occurred at four local franchises but the national company maintains the gas pumps.

7-Eleven spokeswoman Dana Manley said from Dallas that the company takes the charges and its responsibilities seriously.

She said the company does not believe any of the four local franchises had any release of gasoline fumes and characterized the problem as a paperwork error.

"The testing had been done on time but the paperwork had not been submitted," she said. "All four were in compliance."

But as part of the stipulated agreement, the company will go "above and beyond" local air quality laws, she said, to ensure the problem does not happen again.

"We are going to proceed with retraining all of our company employees," Manley said. "Part of that would be a daily visual inspection, keeping daily logs, and contacting maintenance immediately if there is a problem.

"Another component not required by the regulations but that we are going to be doing is working with an independent third party to do inspections every 90 to 120 days."

Mary Anne Miller, Clark County counsel for Air Quality Management, said the stipulation will affect all 90 gas stations 7-Eleven maintains in the Las Vegas Valley.The final penalty could be more or less than the fine recommended by the county. Air Pollution Control Hearing Officer Richard Nielsen, who is charged with making the final decision, is scheduled to hear the issue at a July 10 meeting in the Clark County Commission chambers.

Bob Folle, Air Quality Management compliance manager, said more specific information on 7-Eleven's violations "is confidential until the hearing," but he said the violations were serious.

"It was all of their gasoline dispensing facilities, a variety of different violations," he said. "I couldn't tell you more because at this point they are alleged violations."

Negotiations to reduce penalties between violators of local air pollution laws and Air Quality Management are not unusual and almost always require the company to correct the cited problems.

"Our number one concern is compliance with the regulations rather than how much we can penalize them," Folle said. "We want to ensure that they are going to get and remain in compliance. ... Obviously it was a fairly large commitment (to correct the problem) because the penalty was reduced so much."

In some cases several years ago, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has essentially second-guessed local air pollution authorities, imposing larger federal penalties on polluters who were given small fines locally.

Ken Bigos, associate director for the EPA's regional air division, said the federal agency has not taken such action since the county took over air-quality responsibilities from the Clark County Health District a year ago.

"Generally, we always look to the local counties to be on the front line as far as taking enforcement action," Bigos said. "We hope that the counties take appropriate actions when they find violations."

The EPA probably would not get involved in a local issue and response unless someone unhappy with the resolution brought it to the federal agency's attention, he said.

The county and federal agencies agree that gasoline fumes can potentially be serious problems. Gas fumes are part of a class of pollutants called "volatile organic compounds" which can be dangerous in themselves or contribute to ozone and urban smog.

The county has had problems with ozone, and could be ruled out of compliance with new federal ozone standards scheduled to go into effect in 2004. That would require the county to craft and adopt a plan to control the pollutant or face federal sanctions.