Expanding boat company seeks new emissions permit

In these tough economic times, one Annapolis boatbuilder is staying afloat - and then some.

Performance Cruising, on Edgewood Road along Back Creek, recently built a new building on its campus, part of an expansion to accommodate a state-of-the-art process for building a trimaran called the Telstar 28.

Tony Smith, company owner and president, said the $80,000 boat is the next wave in boat building. He said he hopes it will appeal to younger buyers interested in a small, fast, fun boat.

"Nobody in the world has a boat like this," he said, walking through the final assembly line.

But ramping up production can't happen until the company gets a new air-emissions permit from the state - something that some neighbors are trying to block.

As part of creating the fiberglass boats - the company also has a more traditional catamaran called the Gemini - Performance Cruising uses a liquid called styrene. The company sends styrene emissions into the air.

With increased production, Performance Cruising officials said they expect to use more styrene and therefore the company needs a new air permit to allow increased emissions.

But Mr. Smith said a new technology called "vacuum infusion" used on the Telstars will result in fewer styrene emissions than before. That still didn't sit well with many local residents who attended a hearing on the permit this week at the Eastport Fire Station.

The neighbors told officials from the Maryland Department of the Environment the styrene sends an awful stink into their communities. And they said they're worried about health effects of styrene, which is classified as apossible carcinogen for humans.

Tom Bodor, who lives directly across Back Creek from Performance Cruising, said he sees workers wearing protective suits and masks. But residents of his Green Acres neighborhood breathe air with styrene emissions without protection.

"The fact remains, I am not protected in any way," he said.

Justin Ford, president of the Green Acres community, said the neighbors' concerns might be assuaged if some off-site air-quality monitoring was included as a condition of the permit.

"Is there a chance we can set up some monitoring stations ... to make sure the promises and assurances are met?" he said.

Dr. Robert Haberlein, an environmental engineering consultant hired by Performance Cruising, said the styrene emissions will now be vented into the air through a 30-foot stack along the main building's roof line. That's better, he said, than the current process of venting emissions through fans that are just 6 feet off the ground.

The styrene will blow into the air and be carried away by winds as it dissipates - rather than being shot into the air at ground level, he said.

And Mr. Smith, while walking through his factory buildings yesterday, said the new fiberglass process results in far fewer emissions than the permit allows. But he said environmental laws must address the effects of traditional operations - not his vacuum-infusion process, which he said is cleaner.

Basically, instead of spraying a resin onto sheets of glass fabric to create fiberglass, a messy process, the vacuum infusion involves covering layers of materials in a sealed plastic bag and using a vacuum to suck the resin through the material.

Glenn Pierce, who was building Telstar hulls yesterday, said he much prefers the vacuum-infusion process.

"This is nice: no fumes, no stink," he said.

If the air permit is issued, Mr. Smith said he plans to shuffle his company's operations among its buildings. The new building will be used for putting final touches on the Geminis, freeing up more space in an existing building for increased Telstar production.

Though the Maryland Department of the Environment has made a "tentative decision" to issue the permit, officials still are accepting comments through Monday.

Comments can be sent to the attention of MDE's Shannon Heafey at 1800 Washington Blvd., Suite 270, Baltimore MD, 21230 or sheafey@mde.state.md.us.