Mobil Given Deadline for Cleanup of Gas Pollution

The state Regional Water Quality Control Board has ordered Mobil Oil Corp. to make progress by next March in cleaning up gasoline that has polluted ground water near its Torrance refinery or face fines of up to $5,000 a day.

Concerned about a threat to drinking water, the board gave Mobil until May 1 to present a comprehensive plan for cleaning up an underground plume of gasoline that has spread 1,200 feet beyond the refinery grounds.

The cleanup order puts Mobil on notice that the company could face stiff fines if it fails to remove significant volumes of gasoline from the ground-water aquifers near its Torrance facility by March 1, 1989.

Board member Dan Walker, also a Torrance city councilman, asked his fellow board members to strengthen the order to “show the people of the South Bay that something is going to occur by a date.” Otherwise, Walker said the deadline for the cleanup will be “out there in never-never land.”

The board’s unanimous decision on Monday in Los Angeles is the latest action by local, regional and state agencies to tighten regulatory controls on the refinery.

Mobil has been under close scrutiny since an explosion rocked the refinery on Nov. 24, sparking a spectacular fire that burned for two days.

The blast, which broke windows in surrounding homes and businesses and did millions of dollars damage to the refinery, was caused by an excess of lethal hydrofluoric acid in a refinery unit that produces gasoline.

Although no one suffered serious injury, the explosion and fire focused local attention on use of hydrofluoric acid at the refinery and underscored warnings from the Environmental Policy Institute about the danger posed by the chemical.

Before the cause of the Mobil explosion was known, the Washington-based environmental group issued a report that said an accidental release of hydrofluoric acid at any of the 58 refineries in the United States that use the chemical could produce a ground-hugging cloud of hydrogen fluoride gas deadly to anyone exposed within a 5-mile area.

Alarmed by the report and concerned about safety of the refinery, which was the scene of another explosion and fire that killed three persons in December, 1979, the Torrance City Council began a study of the refinery’s operations.

The city wants an outside consultant to assess whether the refinery is being operated safely or poses a risk to the community. The study could take as long as three months and cost nearly $90,000.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has formed a task force to examine the possible phase-out of hydrofluoric acid at Mobil and five other refineries and industrial plants in the Los Angeles area. The district also has fined Mobil for 39 air-quality violations in the past three years.

And, in the midst of a public debate about safety, 450 members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union walked off the job at the refinery Feb. 4. The strike, which centers on Mobil’s plans to remove key refinery control room staff from union control, enters its eighth week today.

So far, the most extensive toxic environmental problem documented at Mobil involves the contamination of ground water in and around the refinery.

Three years ago, the regional water quality board ordered all refineries in the Los Angeles area to conduct underground tests to determine if leaks from storage tanks had polluted ground water supplies.

The tests at wells on Mobil property showed three pools of “free hydrocarbon”--basically refined gasoline--in the shallow ground water about 40 feet below the western part of the sprawling refinery. The test results also showed a pool of gasoline as much as 25 feet thick floating on top the deeper, regional Gardena aquifer. Neither supply local drinking water.

Torrance draws some of its drinking water from the deeper Silverado and Lynwood aquifers, but none of the city wells are in the immediate area.

Test wells drilled in Torrance’s eastside redevelopment area have detected a plume of dissolved gasoline in the Gardena aquifer as far as 1,200 feet southeast of the refinery’s storage tanks at Van Ness Avenue and Del Amo Boulevard. The wells show levels of benzene, a carcinogen, thousands of times higher than state limits for drinking water. Other gasoline components were also found.

Jim Ross, engineer in charge of the regional board’s refinery inspection project, said the board staff is certain that uncontrolled releases of hydrocarbons from Mobil are responsible for the ground water contamination southeast of the refinery.

“We’re about 100% convinced,” Ross said, “but Mobil is less convinced.”

Ross said the board’s order establishes a workable time schedule to recover hydrocarbons on Gardena aquifer and to assess the extent of the pollution off the Mobil property.

Joseph Armao, attorney for American Honda Motor Co., which plans to build its North American headquarters on 25 acres in the Torrance redevelopment area, also blames Mobil for the ground water problem.

“We are 100% sure that Mobil is the major source, if not the only source of the pollution,” Armao told the board.

Armao and an attorney for the Torrance Redevelopment Agency expressed concern about last-minute changes in the order negotiated last week at Mobil’s request.

Deadline Urged

Both urged the board to set a strict deadline for the clean-up because Armao said there is a “perception that Mobil is not moving as expeditiously as possible.”

“Without realizing some significant reduction by a date certain,” Armao said, “I don’t think we have any teeth in the order.”

Mobil attorney Bryant Danner disputed the contention that the company is responsible for ground water contamination off the refinery grounds.

And Mobil refinery manager Wyman D. Robb said in a statement released after the meeting that information developed so far “would not conclusively show a relationship between Mobil’s dissolved hydrocarbon plume and the contamination under the Honda site. Chemicals were found in the ground water under Honda by Honda’s consultant that have not been detected in our on-site wells.”

Robb said Mobil intends to work with the water board to “investigate and resolve ground water contamination problems as quickly as possible.”

Over the past three years, Robb said Mobil has installed 131 ground water monitoring wells and has recovered more than 45,000 gallons of gasoline from the shallow aquifer under the refinery.

Tom Gregory, Mobil’s manager of safety and training, said the company will use wells to pump out the gasoline, separate it from the water, then reprocess and refine the material into a useable product.

While Mobil maps plans for the cleanup, the City of Torrance is moving ahead with its search for a consultant to conduct an industrial safety audit of the refinery.

The study will examine the equipment, materials, personnel, procedures and training used by Mobil and will include a review of all information on incidents that have occurred at the refinery.

Two consulting firms, Gage-Babcock & Associates and Mittelhauser Corp. have told city officials the 10-week study will cost $80,000 to $88,000.

The city intends to ask Mobil to pay for the report, said city officials.