Wieder to Seek Rules on Lethal Chemical Trucked Into County

Concerned that the Air Force is trucking a lethal chemical on Orange County freeways, a county supervisor said Sunday she will ask the county’s congressmen to seek strict regulation of such shipments during upcoming hearings in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

“Sure, it’s scary,” Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said of the truck shipments. “It makes me wonder if this is the tip of the iceberg. And what bothers me is that this (the Air Force) is a government agency that is not concerned with the bigger picture (the danger to people along the route). . . . It bothers me.”

Wieder, reacting to a Times story Sunday detailing the trucking of liquid cryogenic fluorine, a potentially lethal chemical used for laser research, said the nine-year safety record for the shipments “is no excuse.”

“Local authorities should be more involved in determining how this stuff is moved,” she said.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez added, “I will not rest on this one until I know that we are capable of handling an accident of the magnitude that could happen with one of these shipments. . . . I’m going to request a report from our fire department and its hazardous materials unit and the CAO (county administrative officer) about the size and frequency of these shipments.”

Trucks carrying the hazardous chemical--which can produce fumes capable of causing massive fatalities in the event of an accidental spill--use the Riverside, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and San Diego freeways to reach a TRW laboratory in San Clemente. The chemical is hauled in special trucks along the heavily populated route despite the availability of an alternate route through Rancho California and Escondido that crosses mostly rural and sparsely populated areas.

The chemical is so dangerous that immediate evacuation of everyone within a 3.9-mile radius could be required. But the U.S. Department of Transportation routinely approved the Orange County route despite federal laws urging shipment of toxic materials through less-populated areas. However, the department would not have known about the shipments had the Air Force not needed special permission to ship the chemical in larger-than-normal containers.

Officials in Orange County also expressed concern about the haphazard notification process.

“It’s a bad idea that we haven’t had advanced notification because cryogenic fluorine is one of the orneriest, most hazardous chemicals,” Anaheim Fire Capt. Bob Hirst said. “It has properties that react with just about everything. If it spilled, it would tax our resources.”

The federal government has not informed the Anaheim Fire Department that the chemical is routinely transported through the city on the Riverside Freeway, Hirst said. Anaheim has one of the five hazardous materials response teams that are contracted to handle chemical spills anywhere in the county.

However, Battalion Chief Tom Skelly of the Santa Ana Fire Department said his department, which is among the five departments with hazardous materials response teams, was told of the cryogenic fluorine shipments through the county.

“It is only one of many hazardous chemicals that are routinely transported through Santa Ana,” said Skelly, “and there’s nothing out of the ordinary about it. We are ready to take whatever corrective measures are necessary should a spill occur.”

Skelly added, “I’m not saying not to worry, but life goes on. Society needs these chemicals and we just happen to be located where industries use them.”

Although the Air Force has a nine-year record of no spills in its shipments through Orange County, a leak of a modified version of the chemical in Anaheim resulted in a massive evacuation nearly two years ago.

More than 150 people were evacuated from three apartment complexes and three motels in Anaheim for about four hours on Nov. 22, 1985, when a cloud of toxic fumes leaked from a faulty valve on a tanker truck parked on Ball Road.

In that incident, the chemical was part of a hydrofluoric acid mixture used to remove scales that build up on industrial tanks. There were no injuries.

Supervisor and former Anaheim Mayor Don R. Roth, whose district is the most densely populated of those traversed by the Air Force shipments, said Sunday: “I’m deeply concerned that we haven’t been notified. But I also realize that dozens of other materials move through our county every day. . . .

“The county should have been well informed, because it’s scary. We have to consider the movement of these activities to routes where there are less people, a less amount of traffic.”

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said he had not seen news reports of the shipments and declined comment. Along with the county’s congressmen, Supervisor Roger R. Stanton could not be reached for comment.

Exactly how much county officials did know in advance about the shipments was difficult to determine Sunday.

Orange County Fire Chief Lawrence J. Holms said he wasn’t sure if he had been notified of the Air Force shipments to San Clemente because his office hears about so many chemicals.

Hugh Wood, who maintains the county’s official inventory of hazardous material uses, manufacturing and storage sites, could not be reached for comment. But Karen R. Peters, a staff analyst for Woods, said she could not recall her office being notified about the Air Force shipments.

Orange County Fire Department Capt. Mike Boyle, who has an Irvine-based hazardous materials response team, said he was never informed about the freeway route to TRW in San Clemente. But he said the department was aware that TRW has been storing the chemical and using it at its San Clemente lab and has an emergency preparedness plan in case of an accident.

“We were aware that they had it on the premises,” Boyle said. “But I don’t think our team was aware of the shipments on the freeway, and we would be responsible for handling any spills along the longest part of its (the chemical’s) travel.

“We have maintained a good, professional and working relationship with the people at TRW,” he added. “We’ve seen and worked with the storage tanks out there, short of the top secret projects that they’re doing.”

Of the cryogenic fluorine, itself, Boyle said, “It’s a very bad chemical, but there’s usually so much care and training in the shipping and handling of the material. To deal with it, you have to wear special gear just to protect you from the cold alone.”

Boyle described the chemical as a yellow gas, shipped as a liquid super-cooled to 153 degrees below zero. Referring to research literature, he quoted statistics showing that the upper limit for exposure in the workplace is one part of the chemical per million parts of air, for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Half the rabbits in a laboratory test reached lethal concentrations of 270 parts per million after 30 minutes of exposure, Boyle quoted from a research publication.

But Boyle cautioned that other materials more dangerous than cryogenic fluorine are also transported on county highways and railways. “Hydrozene (rocket fuel) is one of them . . . so is chlorine, which is related to fluorine.”

Los Angeles officials are seeking to ban shipments of rocket fuel through the San Fernando Valley to Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The biggest problem, according to Boyle, is not knowing that such materials are around.

“There are a lot of things that are transported that we’re never aware of,” he said. “For those who routinely handle or ship the stuff, it doesn’t bother them. But for those who don’t, it could create a little bit of alarm.”

Times Staff Writer Doug Brown contributed to this story.