Public Worry Seems to Stir Slowly Over TRW Chemicals

Nancy Maki said she was surprised to learn Monday that the 250-unit apartment complex she manages is about a mile from a TRW laboratory that uses the lethal chemical cryogenic fluorine.

“I knew TRW was out there because we have (employees) here renting. I didn’t know they had any chemicals there. I just thought they were offices,” said Maki, resident manager of Whispering Winds apartments on Calle del Cerro in the Rancho San Clemente community.

The complex is the residential development nearest the TRW plant, which is tucked between sparse hills at the east end of Avenida Pico in unincorporated Orange County, just outside San Clemente.

Cryogenic fluorine recently attracted public attention because of the discovery that the Air Force routinely ships it in cargo trucks along Interstate 15, on the 91 and 55 freeways and Interstate 5 to the TRW laboratories near San Clemente. A major spill could mean immediate evacuation of people within a 3.9-mile radius.

“I’m surprised we weren’t notified because we get information from San Onofre (Nuclear Power Station). They mail information to people in each separate apartment,” Maki said.

Jack Stubbs, San Clemente’s emergency planning officer, said the city didn’t want to alarm citizens unnecessarily by informing them about every potential danger in the area.

“We would have to write volumes,” he said, adding that the city has evacuation plans for every type of emergency and routinely performs evacuation drills because of its location five miles north of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Plant.

“I think people are more afraid of San Onofre than TRW,” said Gary Lo Galbo, a San Clemente police officer and a board member of Vista Pacifica Homeowners Assn. in Rancho San Clemente.

“Most people probably don’t know or have any idea what TRW does. It’s way out at the end of Avenida Pico, and there are no signs or anything about what it is or what it does. I’ve been in San Clemente for 10 years, and I’ve never heard of any problems.”

Irvine Mayor Larry Agran labeled the latest revelations of the transportation of crygenic fluorine as “utterly shocking.” Were a spill to occur along Interstate 5 in Irvine, he said, an evacuation would affect “about the whole city.”

Agran said he will ask that the City Council refer the issue to the city’s Public Safety Commission for review.

“There are safer alternative roles, that’s a key point,” Agran said. “Where there’s a clear safer alternative, that ought to be pursued.”

Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors is expected to request at its Oct. 20 meeting that the county Fire Department study the issue to see if further state or federal legislation may be needed. The report will be due within 30 days.

“If it appears that we can do something about it, then we certainly will be making those recommendations to the appropriate state and federal agencies,” said Hugh Wood of the county Fire Department’s hazardous materials program office.

Wood added that the transportation of hazardous materials is “always a concern” but that “there’s only so much you can really do about it.”

“The question we need to further explore is: Would it be cost effective and would it add significantly enough to the safety or minimizing of risk” if the county were to recommend restricting routes, establishing certain hours of the day for transporting hazardous materials or other regulations, Wood asked.

Rep. Ronald C. Packard (R-Carlsbad) said Monday he thought that the county and the cities through which hazardous materials are transported should go to the appropriate companies and ask that the chemicals be shipped on a less populous route, if possible. TRW’s San Clemente laboratory is in Packard’s district.

Although Packard expressed concern that changing routes would “transfer the problem from one area to another,” he said: “Certainly, they ought to automatically try to determine a route that impacts the least number of people.”

The attention given to cryogenic fluorine is just the “latest dance craze,” Stubbs said, adding that there are hundreds of other chemicals being transported along the highways and used in laboratories every day.

But if there were a major chemical leak at TRW laboratories, Rancho San Clemente would be the area immediately affected, he said.

“We would evacuate residents of that particular area not because they are in danger, but just because they are the closest (to the labs),” he said, adding that the number of people evacuated would depend on the severity of a spill and wind patterns.

“We’re talking about few people as far as the city goes. I haven’t got up-to-the-minute census of what’s back there,” he said. In the most extreme case--if a seam in a storage tank were to rupture--the city would evacuate people within 3 1/2 miles downwind of the plant.

There are at least 800 apartments and houses in Rancho San Clemente--a neighborhood with expensive, ocean-view tract housing. They are Whispering Winds apartments, Vista Pacifica condominiums, and Bella Vista and Villagio home communities. The area has been developing for about two years, with the Rancho San Clemente Tennis and Fitness Club a recent addition.

Susanne Giraud, who is buying a home in Rancho San Clemente, was shocked to find out Monday about TRW’s use of the chemicals.

“I wasn’t aware there were chemicals being used there, and I don’t think anyone is,” Giraud said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to transport deadly chemicals on the roads or to be using them within a mile of where I live.”

Giraud said, however, that she was reconciled to living five miles north of the San Onofre nuclear station and still plans to buy the home, regardless of TRW.

Stubbs said the features that cause people to move to Orange County--such as ocean views--outweigh the potential dangers of living by a nuclear power plant or a laboratory that uses chemicals.

He said the city has worked with TRW to prepare for an emergency chemical leak.

“I’m confident in our capability to respond to an accident, whether it’s this chemical or another transported through this community,” he said.

Stubbs expects many citizens concerned about chemical spills to contact him, just as they did regarding safety of the San Onofre nuclear plant after the earthquake two weeks ago:

“Those who overreact usually do because they don’t know a lot about it. If you can see it and smell it, you can get away from it. But if you can’t, you have to rely on our expertise.” Stubbs said firefighters and police officers know the potential dangers and have been trained to respond to an emergency.

“Our guys are concerned, but they’re not scared to the point where they’re not coming to work,” Stubbs said.

But Whispering Winds’ Maki hopes that the news of chemical usage at TRW will not affect occupancy.

“Well, two weeks ago we had a 6.1 earthquake and nobody moved,” Maki said.