Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511170099
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN MCGRORY THE BOSTON GLOB
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Long
Federal officials say that a multimillion dollar industry has cropped up in the last year around the smuggling of CFC-12, better known by its trademark name of Freon - the compressed gas that cools automobile air conditioners and household refrigerators everywhere.
Massive cargo ships arrive with the Freon under the cover of dark. Captains hide it in the bowels of their boats. Importers disguise shipping manifests to make their cargo appear to be something else.
The reason: Environmentalists concerned that CFC-12 is harming the ozone layer have persuaded the government to impose a hefty green tax on the gas through the remainder of this year. And beginning in January, CFC-12 will be banned outright in the United States, except in rare medical cases and for use on the space shuttle.
``There are people who think the problem of smuggling will be like Prohibition all over again, only with CFC-12 instead of alcohol,'' said Thomas Watts-FitzGerald, the assistant U.S. attorney here who heads up the cases. ``Already this year, the smuggling of CFC-12 was the second highest smuggled product in South Florida, second only to the drug trade.''
Said Keith Prager, a special agent in charge for the U.S. Customs Service: ``It's smuggling the old-fashioned way, with a different cargo.''
Anyone, anywhere with a car can understand the rising value of Freon. In Miami, at AAA Air Conditioning and Radiator, Alan Kromsteadt said he has seen a 30-pound cylinder rise in price from $19.95 a few years ago to $265 today - much of that because of the $5.35 per pound federal import tax. That cost has been passed onto motorists, who are now paying upwards of $100 to recharge their automotive air conditioners, when it was only a fraction of that in the 1980s.
``They're saying the price is outrageous, but there's not a whole lot we can do about it,'' said Kromsteadt. Newer cars built after 1994, meanwhile, use a different refrigerant, less harmful to the atmosphere, called R-134A, and older cars must be retrofitted to accommodate it for a price between $200 and $600.
For a majority of scientists and environmentalists, next year's ban on CFC-12 in the United States - stipulated in the landmark 1987 Montreal Protocol - marked a major victory, but the black market Freon trade has significantly dulled their celebration.
``Everyone in Washington had their their little charts,'' said John Passacantando, executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group, Ozone Action. ``They were thinking they would be pushing people into the alternative.''
When CFC-12 was invented in 1928, it was hailed as somewhat of a miracle chemical - nontoxic, entirely breathable and bringing relief from even the worst heat. But nearly a half-century later, in the mid-1970s, a group of scientists began theorizing that CFC-12, though stable on the ground, was causing damage in the stratosphere to the crucial ozone layer. In October, three scientists, Drs. F. Sherwood Rowland, Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen, won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for their research on ozone depletion caused by humans.
Scientists have argued that when CFC-12 reaches the stratosphere between 15 and 30 miles above the Earth's surface, it is broken down by the sun and releases chlorine. That chlorine then destroys the ozone layer, and the result is more harmful sun rays reach the Earth, causing greater risk of skin cancer and cataract problems among humans and irreparable damage to plant and animal life.
To be sure, there are abstainers. Sallie Baliunas, a physicist with the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, said the government measures over CFC-12 seem more severe than the problem itself. ``It's proper to go on a schedule of phaseouts,'' Baliunas said. ``But I question whether that needs to be this rapid or draconian.''
And in Miami, some lawyers are incredulous over the stiff sentences handed down against CFC-12 smugglers, as well as the high-minded rhetoric used by federal prosecutors.
``Big brother is overstepping his bounds,'' said lawyer Jeffrey Feldman, who represented an accused smuggler sentenced to two years in prison. ``They are putting people in jail for selling something that for years was sold in Kmart.''
Regardless, a task force of U.S. Customs agents, Environmental Protection Agency investigators, IRS agents and U.S. Commerce Department officials scour South Florida and parts of California for any sign of smuggling. Customs, for example, has a team of agents dedicated just to CFC-12 investigations.
Already, more than 1 million pounds of CFC-12 has been confiscated by federal authorities. In South Florida, eight people have been convicted in the last year, and another two await trial. Much of the CFC-12 originates in Northern Europe and India, and arrives either in ports here or in the New York and New Jersey area.
But despite some success, officials hesitate to even gauge the problem. More than 10 cargo ships arrive at the Port of Miami every day bringing in or picking up 24,000 cargo containers. Within an hour's drive, another 12,500 containers are moved each day.
by CNB