PHOENIX -- The bulky rubber Stage II vapor recovery nozzles have been required by law at gas stations in the Phoenix region since the early 1990s to reduce the air pollution caused when fuel vapors escape from the pumps are being phased out, reported The Arizona Republic.
Stage II systems were required in approximately 53 ozone nonattainment areas and ozone transport regions around the country. States have increasingly been allowing them to be decommissioned.
They nozzles use vacuums to capture fuel vapors and send them to the station's underground storage tanks (USTs), but nearly all vehicles since 2006 have been equipped with their own vapor-recovery systems, and those systems on cars work against those on the fuel dispensers.
The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) requested and received approval from the EPA to remove the requirement in Maricopa County and part of Pinal County. The metropolitan Phoenix region was the only area in the state using the devices because it was the only place in the state with air dirty enough to need such an air-quality plan, the report said.
"Phasing them out is preventing more pollution," Matt Poppen, senior air-quality project manager for MAG, told the newspaper.
When vehicles have their own systems, the vacuums on the pumps force air into the USTs, and eventually the tanks vent that pressure and cause more pollution.
New gas stations have not been installing the systems, said the report, and existing stations will start replacing them in October 2016 and be finished by September 2018, according to the plan.
That will cost the gas stations money, but save them in the long run because they no longer will have to test the vapor-recovery systems to ensure they are working properly, Poppen said.
Click here to view the full Arizona Republic report.
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