Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509180091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The federal government has no current estimate of the amount of the chemicals, mostly chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, entering the country illegally. Last year, officials said it was about 10,000 tons.
A 1987 international agreement aims to limit damage to the earth's protective ozone layer but does not ban use of the chemicals.
The agreement, the Montreal Protocol, bans production of CFCs for most uses in developed countries at the end of this year. The agreement, in its current form, will allow production for use in developing countries for 10 more years.
The ozone layer in the stratosphere protects people, plants and animals against damaging ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Deterioration of the ozone layer, many scientists believe, increases the incidence of skin cancers and other radiation-related diseases.
The private group, Ozone Action, also said that a new pattern of international trade is developing, with the United States exporting more and more CFCs to developing countries, even though production for domestic use is banned.
Such exports are legal, and the producers argue that they are even desirable, because they will forestall countries like India and China from building their own factories, which they might not shut down when their deadline arrives in 2005.
To avoid duties and excise taxes, which total almost $6 a pound, CFCs are being smuggled into the United States from Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union, Ozone Action said.
The group said that a 30-pound cylinder that costs $70 in Europe is sold in the United States for $242. If 22,000 tons are smuggled in yearly, the group calculated that lost duties and excise taxes would amount to more than $200 million.
Thomas A. Watts-FitzGerald, an assistant United States attorney in Miami who has prosecuted several CFC smuggling cases, said in a telephone interview that there was an informal consensus among government officials last year that about 10,000 tons of CFCs were smuggled into the country every year. He said the quantity had probably declined because of recent prosecutions.
On Friday, the U.S. attorney in Miami, Kendall Coffey, said two dealers in the chemicals. Robert Pennell, 50, of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., and Sam Alfano, 63, of Plantation, Fla., had pleaded guilty to importing the material without the required permits.
They face a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and fines of $8.8 million. In another case this year, Jose Prieto of Hialieah, Fla., was convicted of importing CFCs without permits and Paul J. Zborovsky of Cape Coral, Fla., pleaded guilty.
The level of smuggling is very important to the health of the ozone layer, Passacantando said, as the scientific studies that led to the Montreal Protocol's limits on ozone production ``all assumed 100 percent compliance.''
The material seized from smugglers is given to the Defense Department, which stockpiles it for use in older equipment, said John Passacantando, executive director of Ozone Action.
Ozone Action's study, by Jim Vallette, a specialist in world trade, was based on conversations with distributors and scrutiny of shipping records around the world. In releasing its report Thursday, the group criticized American manufacturers for plans to continue production to meet demand in developing countries. If all production stopped, the group said, then identifying smuggled CFCs would be simple; everything found would be illegal.
by CNB