SACRAMENTO – The California Air Resources Board (ARB) announced today that it has ordered Blitz USA, Inc. (Blitz) to immediately cease and desist distributing and selling the Sure Pour spouts and spill-proof systems in the State of California.

"These gas cans have been found to have an extremely high failure rate," said ARB Executive Officer, Michael Kenny. "Coupled with the large market share Blitz enjoys, we felt that we could not allow this source of environmental damage to continue unchecked."

After assurances from Blitz that technical problems with the gas cans had been corrected, ARB continued to find high failure rates. A major reason for the failures was the deterioration of the "O" rings in the spouts and on the containers. These failures leave customers with leaking gas cans which lead to the formation of health damaging fumes.

Portable gas cans account for about 87 tons per day (TPD) of smog-forming reactive organic gasses (ROG) escaping into California's air. Without the ARB's action to reduce gas can emissions, that number will grow to 96 TPD by 2010. ARB regulations will result in a 73 percent reduction in ROG emissions from gas cans by 2010, cutting the amount of smog-forming emissions to 26 TPD. Based on industry and government data, it is estimated that there are 9.2 million residential gas cans and almost 600,000 commercial gas cans in California. About 1.9 million new gas cans are sold each year in the state.

At its September 23, 1999, meeting the ARB adopted new emission and spill-control regulations for portable containers, commonly known as "gas cans" and gas can spouts. The regulations apply to new gas cans and spouts sold in California after January 1, 2001. There is no requirement for owners of gas cans or spouts sold before that date to modify their gas cans or to scrap them and buy new ones.

"All of the gains we could have made from properly working gas cans can be nullified by the failure of these cans," continued Kenny. "We were forced to issue the cease and desist order to protect the health and welfare of Californians."