Two Assembly Bills Would Bar Hazardous Firms Near Schools

Bonita school board member Sharon Scott will testify Monday before the state Assembly’s Committee on Natural Resources, arguing for the passage of a bill intended to prevent incidents such as an acid leak earlier this year that caused 100 schoolchildren in San Dimas to become ill.

The bill, AB 3728, is sponsored by Assemblyman Bill Lancaster (D-Covina) and would empower the South Coast Air Quality Management District to deny an operating permit to any company proposing to operate a factory next to a school, hospital or convalescent home if the district’s board believes that the plant poses a health hazard.

On Jan. 7, acetic acid gas from a nickel-plating tank at Plato Products in Glendora escaped through an open door and drifted to nearby Arma J. Shull School, across the city line in San Dimas. Exposure to the vinegar-like fumes caused mild, temporary symptoms such as headaches and nausea among the children.

As a result of the incident, Plato officials agreed to cease all plating operations by Sept. 1 and conduct such work only during non-school hours until then. But the leak also focused attention on a sizable crack in the air pollution control system.

“What’s really needed here is the bottom-line authority to prevent the placement of these facilities next to schools,” said Scott, who led the school district’s fight against Plato and has since been y involved in seeking legislation such as the Lancaster bill.

No Legal Authority

Although parents and neighbors had complained for four years that a firm such as Plato did not belong next door to an elementary school, the AQMD did not have the legal authority to deny a permit to a firm without evidence of an actual health hazard.

“That’s after the fact,” said Gene Fisher, intergovernmental affairs officer for the AQMD. “What we’d like to do is take action before there’s an accidental release.”

Lancaster’s bill is one of two pieces of proposed legislation dealing with the issue of schools and factories. AB 3410, authored by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D--Los Angeles), would require firms with factories within a quarter-mile of a school to use all available pollution controls to protect students.

‘Risk Survey’

Waters’ bill would also enable air quality management districts throughout the state to require a “risk survey” for any proposal to build a factory near a school. The bill would also require school districts to consider the possible dangers posed by nearby industries when choosing a site to build a school.

The impetus behind Waters’ bill was a 1986 incident in which 28 students at Tweedy Elementary School in South Gate were hospitalized after inhaling chlorine fumes that leaked from a nearby plant.

The Assembly Environment and Toxic Materials Committee recently passed the Waters bill by an 8-2 vote, with two of the committee’s seven Republican members voting against it and the other five abstaining. The bill will be considered by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee within the next few weeks.

Members of Lancaster’s and Waters’ staffs met last week with AQMD officials to discuss whether the two bills should be combined but concluded that they should remain separate. Stan Diorio, an aide in Waters’ Sacramento office, said the Lancaster bill, which would affect only the area regulated by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, is not as comprehensive as AB 3410.

‘Doesn’t Do Job’

“It’s a statewide problem,” Diorio said. “His bill is much more narrow and limiting. It just doesn’t do the job for us.”

Lancaster aide Bill Nunes said AB 3728 is intended simply to empower the South Coast district to prevent another Plato-type situation in its jurisdiction, while the Waters bill is designed to revamp statewide policy.

“We’re dealing with the same problem, only from different aspects,” Nunes said. “All we want to do is give the district the authority to deny a permit if a potential health hazard exists.”

Gene Fisher, intergovernmental affairs officer for the AQMD, said the district favors both the permit denial authority contained in the Lancaster bill and the broader regulatory powers offered by Waters.

“It seems that the two bills, though complementary, are separate and apart,” Fisher said. “We support both of them.”

Also favoring both bills is Dr. Paul Papanek, chief of the toxics and epidemiology program for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Papanek, who will also testify before the Natural Resources committee Monday, has described the relative locations of schools and factories as “an area in which we as a society have not been very smart.”

In a letter urging the county health department to endorse the two bills, Papanek cited three instances in the past two years in which school children in the county have become ill from breathing pollutants from nearby factories. The problem, he said, is a “gap” in existing pollution control regulations.

Action ‘Difficult’

“When the siting of an industrial facility near a school poses only a potential hazard, it is difficult to take preventive action,” Papanek wrote. “Typically . . . one must wait until emissions have occurred and illnesses have been documented to take some regulatory step.”

In assessing the bills, Papanek said both contain flaws, though they are not significant enough to warrant opposing either one.

The Lancaster bill, he said, should be expanded to include existing factories, instead of just regulating proposed facilities. The Waters bill defines “toxic air contaminants” as any of a number of materials, but Papanek said this definition should be expanded to include irritants such as acetic acid, the substance involved in the Shull School incident.

Several Supporters

The two bills have already been endorsed by the Bonita school board and the Los Angeles County Medical Assn. Meanwhile, the American Lung Assn., the California School Boards Assn., the county health department and the National Council on Aging are considering whether to lend their support.

But the bills also have their opponents, most notably the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, a pro-industry lobbying group.

The council’s position is that both bills are unnecessary because the state Health and Safety Code already empowers air quality management districts to prohibit firms from discharging contaminants that cause “injury, detriment, nuisance or annoyance” to the public.

“We just don’t think that it’s necessary to give the districts overly broad powers to deny permits,” said Evelyn Heidelberg, a consultant who is lobbying against the bills on behalf of the council. “It’s very vague and can be used in a way that might be detrimental against industries that might not be the most popular land use in an area.”

‘Vague and Broad’

In the case of the Lancaster bill, the group takes exception to giving the South Coast district the authority to deny permits based on a “potential health hazard.”

“That is so vague and broad,” Heidelberg said. “That could be used in all kinds of ways against all kinds of industrial facilities. . . . A school itself poses a health hazard. They use boilers. They use what anyone would consider toxic materials.”

Nunes said the lobbyists’ argument that the bill would be superfluous is a smoke screen.

“We have a legal opinion that says that’s not true,” Nunes said. “If that authority exists, it must be implied. What’s the harm of giving (the AQMD) that authority explicitly and clearing it up?”

Scott, who will appear for the committee on behalf of the children in the Bonita Unified School District, said she is not concerned about the efforts of lobbyists to oppose the Lancaster bill.

Supports Sections

“If anybody has the nerve to get up and (oppose the bill), I believe that could be the most supportive testimony for the bill,” Scott said. “They may be fighting for big bucks, but they’re not going to do it at the expense of the health of our children. It is that very kind of attitude that has caused the problem that this bill is trying to address.”

Heidelberg said the Council for Environmental and Economic Balance supports those sections of the Waters bill requiring school districts to be mindful of where they build new schools. However, she said the requirement that all factories within a quarter-mile of a school be subjected to rigorous regulation is unreasonable.

“In L.A. County, if you were to draw a quarter-mile radius around all the schools, it would pretty well blanket the county,” she said.

Diorio said he does not understand why Heidelberg’s group is opposed to the bill in its current form.

“The industry shouldn’t have that big a problem with it, but they automatically have a knee-jerk response to anything involving toxics,” Diorio said.

Heidelberg said her group favors preventing Plato-type situations in the future and would like to meet with staff members from Lancaster’s and Waters’ offices to discuss amending the bills to make them amenable to industry.

‘Objectives Are the Same’

“We support the intent of both bills,” she said. “We don’t want to maintain the status quo. Our objectives are the same as those of the district and the authors. We just disagree on the best way to get there.”

Diorio doubts that industry opposition will prevent the bills from passing basically intact.

“I think when the public begins to understand the threat to children’s safety,” he said, “I think there’s going to be a real groundswell that the Republicans (in the Legislature) can’t resist and the governor can’t resist.”