L.A. Acts to Reroute Loads of Rocket Fuel Out of City

Los Angeles city officials announced several plans Tuesday to reroute trucks carrying highly toxic rocket fuels and other hazardous materials away from congested metropolitan freeways to desert roads north of the city.

Presently, the trucks carry extremely volatile and poisonous fuels along freeways passing through the San Gabriel Valley, Pasadena, Glendale and the San Fernando Valley. The shipments pass through the Los Angeles metropolitan area on the way from out-of-state manufacturers to Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Santa Barbara where military rockets are launched.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn said he will ask California Highway Patrol officials to ban the shipment of potentially deadly Air Force rocket fuels by tanker trucks on the Ventura Freeway through the San Fernando Valley--the portion of fuel routes lying within the Los Angeles city limits. “This is a disaster waiting to happen,” he said.

Added Loads Scheduled

Air Force officials said they expect an additional 25 to 27 trucks loaded with rocket fuel to use the current routes on the way to Vandenberg AFB in the next year. There have been 12 shipments in the last 21 months, Vandenberg spokesman Sgt. Bruce Zielsdorf said.

A CHP spokesman said it would take four to six months to make the route changes. Hahn said he has started work on an ordinance that would regulate routes and transportation times inside Los Angeles city limits.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky introduced a council motion that seeks state and federal legislation to force the rerouting of Air Force rocket fuels away from metropolitan areas to roads through sparsely populated desert cities such as Barstow, Mojave and Gorman.

“No highway is less appropriate for the transportation of rocket fuel than the Ventura Freeway,” Yaroslavsky said at a press conference Tuesday. “I can’t think of an area more congested.”

Yaroslavsky was joined at a press conference by two other council members, Marvin Braude and Joy Picus, who also represent portions of the San Fernando Valley adjacent to the Ventura Freeway. Yaroslavsky’s motion, which the City Council is scheduled to vote on Sept. 29, also seeks state or federal legislation that would require the Air Force and other shippers to notify local fire and police departments when hazardous materials are transported through cities.

“According to the fire chief, the city of Los Angeles has not been notified at all of the rocket fuel shipments,” Yaroslavsky said. The Air Force has an informal agreement to notify Ventura and Santa Barbara county fire departments six hours before a rocket fuel shipment.

Yaroslavsky and Hahn said their actions were prompted by a Los Angeles Times article Sunday reporting that the Air Force has used tanker trucks for the last several years to carry the deadly cargo over the urban and suburban routes.

Trucks enter the metropolitan area on the San Bernardino Freeway and proceed to Interstate 210, California 134 and the Ventura Freeway. The Ventura Freeway is the only section of the route in Los Angeles.

Perilous Potential

An accident involving one of these tanker trucks, which carry as much as 40,000 pounds of rocket fuel materials, has the potential to cause thousands of deaths and injuries as it passes through some of the most densely populated areas of Southern California, hazardous materials experts said.

Shipments of the two primary fuel materials used at Vandenberg, nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, reached a peak in 1985 when 776,858 pounds of the two materials were trucked through Los Angeles and Ventura counties, Ventura County Fire Department records show. From 1981 to 1984, an average of 21 tanker truck shipments a year were recorded, the Fire Department records said.

The U.S. House of Representatives’ governmental operations subcommittee has scheduled hearings later this month to review the Air Force rocket fuel shipments. Currently, the Air Force has an exemption from federal restrictions on the transportation of nitrogen tetroxide.

Ventura County fire officials are urging the subcommittee to change the route of the rocket fuel shipments to a route north of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Both Hahn and Yaroslavsky said they agreed with the route proposed by Ventura County officials.