Change Is Signaled on Hazardous Material Lists

A spokesman for a coalition of Orange County industrial firms said Friday that he supports a proposed new ordinance that would require businesses to disclose the hazardous materials they keep on hand, potentially signaling a major shift in industry’s historic resistance to revealing its chemical secrets.

Thomas R. Confer, environmental safety manager for Narmco Materials Inc. of Anaheim, said he will recommend that members of the Industrial Environmental Coalition approve the proposed ordinance when they consider it next week.

Approval by the coalition, an organization of about 60 Orange County industrial firms which generate hazardous waste, would signal an important shift in attitude among many of the industrial leaders who successfully lobbied to defeat a similar measure in Orange County two years ago.

Trade Secrets Issue

A key point of opposition was that a law requiring companies to disclose their hazardous materials might also force them to reveal trade secrets to competing firms.

However, that was before a toxic chemical fire at an Anaheim agricultural supply warehouse burned for several days in June, forcing hundreds of families from their homes while firefighters sought reliable information on what chemicals were smoldering inside.

That incident and others like it throughout the state have prompted industry officials to take a closer look at disclosure ordinances such as the one recently drafted by the Orange County Fire Chiefs Assn., Confer said.

“They all realize there’s no point in fighting the disclosure ordinance anymore. It’s going to happen. There are too many good, solid reasons that it has to happen,” said Robert A. Griffith, head of the county’s hazardous materials program. “It’s been a completely different experience than it was two years ago.”

Matter of Cooperation

Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who proposed the original disclosure ordinance in 1983, added:

“The business community has seen that if they want to survive in the community, they simply must become cooperative. It’s either go ahead and get a sound ordinance that will allow us to deal with it responsibly, or people are simply going to throw those types of businesses out of the community.”

Next week, the Board of Supervisors will receive a report from Griffith seeking authorization to proceed with final preparation of the ordinance. If board members give him the go-ahead, the proposed law could be ready for adoption in about six weeks.

Griffith said he hopes that the county’s 26 cities will follow suit, imposing disclosure requirements on an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 businesses throughout Orange County.

The draft ordinance prepared by county fire chiefs and disclosed this week has these major provisions:

- Businesses would be required to submit reports to the county twice a year, detailing all hazardous materials they store in quantities of more than 55 gallons or 500 pounds. Especially dangerous chemicals would have to be reported even if they are handled in smaller quantities. Companies would be required to update their reports whenever new materials are brought onto a site.

- The chemical data would be programmed into a computer, through which it would become instantly available to emergency officials in the event of a fire, spill or toxic gas release. Companies would pay fees of an estimated $50 to $100 a year to help offset reporting and filing costs.

- The touchy issue of disclosing trade secrets would be handled in a manner that already has won endorsement from several industry groups in California cities which have adopted disclosure ordinances.

Under the proposed ordinance, county officials would wait about 30 days before responding to any request for chemical data listed as a trade secret, giving the company involved time to seek a court order blocking release of the information. City and county officials who released the information without informing the company affected could be charged with a misdemeanor.

Nestande’s original proposal drew fire from industry representatives because it would have required businesses to disclose all of a company’s chemicals, even those classified as “trade secrets.”

A number of legal opinions have held that because such disclosures become a matter of public record, trade secrets could not be protected--especially if a member of the public or a company’s competitor requested the information intended solely for emergency use from fire department officials.

With the new proposal, “At least you’re giving industry an opportunity to prevent the release of the information,” said Confer, who expects the trade-secret protections to be an important factor in winning industry support for the ordinance.

Will Discuss Penalty

However, Confer said the industrial coalition will discuss whether violation of the release prohibitions should be made a felony, rather than a misdemeanor.

Coalition members are scheduled to consider the ordinance on Thursday.

The Industrial League of Orange County, which was instrumental in defeating the 1983 disclosure ordinance, has not yet reviewed the most recent ordinance and has no position on it, according to Todd Nicholson, the group’s executive director.

“Overall, our hope is that whatever ordinances are developed, that there is some uniformity throughout because one of our concerns is, particularly with companies that have multiple plants in various locations, that if they’re required to respond to ordinances in a variety of different ways, it makes it very difficult for them,” he said.