"California Case Sets Stage to End Use Of Toxic Lead Wheel-Balancing Weights" Green Car Advisor

California Case Sets Stage to End Use Of Toxic Lead Wheel-Balancing Weights

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

California once again is taking a lead role in a significant environmental cleanup effort involving the automobile.

This time, though, it nothing to do with tailpipe emissions, greenhouse gases or fuel economy.

It's those little lead wheel-balancing weights that are the culprit and in a court decision that sets the stage for a nationwide effort to get the lead out, Chrysler and the three largest wheel weight makers in the U.S. have agreed to stop using them in California by the end of 2009.

The agreement is likely to have nationwide repercussions and comes just two weeks before the federal Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce a national education and voluntary compliance campaign to eliminate lead wheel weights, which release thousands of tons of toxic lead particles into the environment each year.

The weights are considered an environmental hazard because they have a tendency to fall off and get ground to lead dust by passing vehicles.

A lot of the lead particles washed from road surfaces during rainstorms end up in groundwater supplies.

In its suit, the Oakland, Calif-based Center for Environmental Health maintained that errant tire weights are responsible for 500,000 pounds of lead being released into California's environment alone each year.

The weights are the nation's largest unregulated source of new lead leaching into the environment, said Jeff Gearhart, director of the Clean Car Campaign at the Michigan-based Ecology Center .

"This is about to become a major national issue, he told Green Car Advisor in an interview following the California settlement.

The EPA is expected to launch its voluntary campaign with an announcement Aug 29 during the Detroit Grand Prix.

Gearhart expressed dismay that the agency hasn't taken a leadership role in actually banning the weights, but said his and other environmental organizations "expect dozens of states to follow California's lead and ban them."

Most lead weights are installed when tires are replaced or when a car owner purchases new wheels to replace the wheels that came with the vehicle.

European and Asian automakers have been phasing them out over the past few years in favor of zinc and steel weights. Ford and General Motors also have voluntarily stopped using lead weights, said Gearhart.

Chrysler agreed in the California lawsuit settlement to stop using lead weights by July 31, 2009, but a spokesman for the company said it actually expects to have ended use of lead weights within the next few weeks.

Gearhart said the Ecology Center, which began campaigning against lead wheel weights almost a decade ago, is working with a number of major tire and wheel retailers and expects several significant chains to announce soon that they, too, are ending the use of lead weights.

The center maintains a website for the lead-free campaign that includes sources for lead-free balancing weights and a listing of vehicles shipped from the factory with lead-free weights.