Jewel food stores in surrounding suburbs will have to replace several refrigeration units to meet Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

Jewel Foods, Inc. will convert old refrigeration units at 37 stores into non-CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) emitting units by 2007, according to a recent federal court agreement.

Jewel also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $100,000 for alleged CFC leaks and promised to use EPA-approved refrigerants in future stores. Any store with more than three significant leaks in a year will also be changed, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Web site.

Affected stores are located in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. The agreement will not affect the local Jewel-Osco at 1320 Sycamore Road.

“The problem with CFCs is that they have effects that long outlast their original date of manufacture,” biological science professor Peter Meserve said. “The ozone hole over the Antarctic continues to persist and grow and no one really knows when that will stop.”

A treaty in September 1987, establishing that CFCs would be globally phased out by the year 2000, was signed by 24 countries and the European Economic Community.

“The actual complaint was filed on Feb. 9, along with the consent decree,” said George Czerniak, chief of the air enforcement branch of the EPA. “The violation was something that we had determined in 2001. We have been talking about a resolution with them since that time.”

EPA investigators discovered the problem when they looked at records from Jewel facilities and discovered information about the repair of leaks in the refrigerants they put into the system, Czerniak said.

There was no effect on the food stored in the units. More information on the hole in the ozone layer and the treaty can be found at www.theozonehole.com/montreal.htm.