Safety at Rocket Fuel Plant Topic of Dispute

Sharp disagreements over factory safety emerged Thursday as an investigation got under way into the origin of an explosion at a rocket fuel plant that caused millions of dollars in property damage and left one man dead and another presumed killed.

Some workers and union leaders charged Thursday that Pacific Engineering and Production Co., the plant owner, had not done enough to assure safety at the factory, one of two in the nation that make fuel oxidizer for the space shuttle and the nation’s nuclear-tipped missiles. They said there had been a number of smaller fires and explosions in recent years at the plant and that a union safety inspection in 1982 specified unsafe conditions.

That assessment, however, contrasted with accounts by government and company officials, who said the plant generally had a good safety record and had passed a Clark County Fire Department inspection as recently as two weeks ago. Officials declined to make that inspection report public Thursday, saying it was being microfilmed. The Nevada Department of Industrial Relations, which also conducts safety inspections at the plant, said it is forbidden by Nevada state law from making its reports available to the press.

Cited 10 Times

“There have been problems from time to time as you would have with any company of that size. . . . Most have been minor problems and a few more serious things,” said James A. Barnes, director of the Nevada Department of Industrial Relations. He said there had been 10 citations in the last five years and that three were serious. He declined to elaborate.

Barnes said there had been “some fines” leveled against the plant, but would not state the amount.

However, in September, 1982, an inspector from the national offices of the United Steelworkers of America, which represents workers in the factory, toured the plant and wrote: “I cannot understand how this plant has not been blown off the face of the earth, given the product it manufactures. It is apparent that the management is more concerned with production than they are with safety and health.” He cited, among other things, poor maintenance and electrical wiring.

Union Charges

Some of the problems discussed in that report were corrected, but others were not, union officials said. They complained that there are no state or federal standards regulating work with ammonium perchlorate, the fuel oxidizer manufactured at the plant.

However, Barnes, the state industrial relations director, said that safety complaints from the union had been investigated and that not all had merit.

Company officials also defended the plant’s safety record.

Keith Rooker, an attorney for Pacific Engineering and Production, told Henderson residents at a community meeting that an investigation would show “that neither the operating process nor our product was the cause of this incident.”

He added, “We are not in a position to make an assessment at this time as to the cause of this incident.”

Spokesmen for the plant, which is owned by Fred Gibson, and his brother, James, a longtime Nevada state senator, also said the factory would be rebuilt, although perhaps not at the same location.

The late-morning Wednesday explosion--actually a series of three blasts--demolished the plant and a nearby marshmallow factory and damaged buildings throughout Henderson, an industrial town of 54,000 people southeast of Las Vegas.

Clark County Fire Chief Roy Parrish said his department, county emergency management officials, the county health district and the federal Environmental Protection Agency would be among the agencies to investigate the blast.

The fire and explosions began with an equipment malfunction in one of the machines, likened to a clothes dryer, that demoisturizes the chemical mixture, officials and workers said. Workers said they first tried to douse the fire with water from hoses but were ordered to evacuate when it was clear that the blaze was out of control. The explosions followed.

Some workers said they smelled natural gas during the early stages of the fire and speculated that a gas leak may have fed the fire.

Southwest Gas Co. spokesman Dante Pistone confirmed that a 16-inch line--the main artery between Boulder City and Las Vegas--does run under plant property, about 2 feet below the surface. Pist1869505824sequence, but added he believes that it broke from the force of the explosion.

“The line did rupture. In reviewing the videotapes this morning, we saw it was either after the second or third explosion. You could see the yellow plume indicating natural gas,” Pistone said.

Meanwhile Thursday, emergency workers faced the potentially dangerous task of cleaning up the still-smoldering remains of the plant and its hot stew of chemicals and acids. Bill Lewis, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, said it would take at least a week for experts to analyze the scope of the task and decide how to approach it. For now, the entire area will be fenced off, Lewis said. Officials in Washington said the plant’s destruction is not expected to have an immediate impact on NASA’s space shuttle flight schedule or deployment of the Air Force’s MX intercontinental nuclear missile, but the long-term effect is cloudy. The other plant that produces the crucial oxidizer is run by Kerr-McGee Corp. and is located just a mile away; it suffered only minor damage in the blast and was expected to reopen soon.

Victim Identified

The man killed was identified Thursday as Bruce Bernard Halker, 56, a Henderson resident who was a vice president of operations at Pacific Engineering. An autopsy showed that he died of hypoxia, the deprivation of oxygen common in bombing victims. Halker’s body was found about 25 feet from the main entrance to the plant and it was unclear where he was at the time of the explosion.

Fire officials said the company comptroller, Roy Westerfield, 61, was missing and thought to be buried under the tons of rubble. He was reported to be a polio victim and had trouble walking.

“It’s my understanding that a number of people asked Mr. Westerfield to leave and he said no because he had to call the Fire Department,” company attorney Rooker said.

Six people remained hospitalized Thursday. An estimated 250 others were treated, mainly for cuts and bruises from flying glass, and released at the area’s five hospitals Wednesday.

A 5-hour-old girl suffered cuts on her eyelids when the explosion shattered glass in the nursery at St. Rose de Lima Hospital in Henderson. The baby was taken to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, where she underwent surgery and her condition was listed as stable.

‘A Miracle’

Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan said it was “a miracle” the death toll was not higher.

The governor estimated that the explosions caused “tens of millions of dollars” in damage and said he would ask that the area be declared a federal disaster zone, making residents and businesses eligible to receive low-cost loans for repairs.

Bryan refused to criticize operations of the plant or its location. “In all fairness, this plant was here 30 years ago. So the plant preceded the development,” he said.

Building inspectors were trying to assess possible structural damage at several buildings but said they so far had found no need to close any in Henderson or Las Vegas.

In Henderson Thursday, the distinct smell of roasted marshmallows wafted from the twisted remains of the Kidd and Co. marshmallow factory less than 100 yards from the rocket fuel plant. With its load of marshmallows still smoldering Thursday afternoon, a tractor-trailer gaily decorated with circus pictures sat in Kidd’s loading dock. Like the remnants of a battle, dozens of cars in the parking lot there and at Pacific Engineering were flattened and charred.

Bill Piper, a Kidd employee, was on the scene, attempting to retrieve his truck. He said there had been three or four fires at Pacific Engineering over the last year and that the rocket fuel firm had done nothing to warn its neighbors about the incidents. He and the 30 employees on duty at the marshmallow plant began to flee for their lives only after a secretary noticed the fire that apparently triggered the explosions and announced the danger over the public address system.

“We could have all been killed,” said Piper, 34.

Clark County Assistant Fire Chief James Barrett said the factory had practiced evacuation procedures.

At a meeting called by the company Thursday, employees were told Pacific Engineering had $29 million in casualty insurance, which was described as more than needed to rebuild. “We hope to be back in business within six months,” Pacific Engineering attorney Rooker said. Asked if they would rebuild on the same site, he said: “We’re not saying one way or the other.”

Fred Gibson, who suffered a burned scalp in the explosion, is the president of Pacific Engineering and Production, founded in 1959. Sen. James Gibson, 63, has been a senator since 1967 and for the last eight years acted as Senate majority leader. Among the most powerful legislators in the state, Gibson is also a leader in the Mormon church.

Although the 2,500-acre industrial area that the plant is a part of is surrounded by the city of Henderson, it is actually in an unincorporated area. The city, which was incorporated in 1953, has tried over the years to annex the industrial area, but the Gibsons, among other landowners there, have refused to join the city, officials said.

Eventually, the city grew around the unincorporated area like a doughnut.

“I have always been uneasy about what goes on in that area,” City Councilman Michael Harris said Thursday. “The worst problem is that the city has no control over what goes on inside that doughnut hole.”

In recent years, squabbles have arisen over issues ranging from noxious fumes emanating from the industrial park to arguments over who should provide police and fire protection, Harris said.

Now, he added, “We are going to have to bear the brunt of this catastrophe . . . but we had nothing to do with it.”

Harris, along with Henderson Mayor Lorna Kesterson, said city officials intend to negotiate for some measure of regulatory authority over the area.

The marshmallow factory also intends to rebuild, its owners said.

Impact on Programs

The impact of the fire on the nation’s defense and space program was discussed Thursday without panic, but with some concern, by officials.

“We have enough of the ingredient to make sure we can make the December, 1989, deadline for full operational capability” of 50 MX missiles, said Lt. Col. Barry Glickman of the Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Office at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. “That’s short term. Longer-term, we are assessing the effect.”

A spokesman at Morton Thiokol, which assembles the MX missile and several other military solid-fuel rockets, said the company was weighing the impact of the Pacific Engineering fire. “Everybody has to be concerned, until we know the need and the remaining production capacity,” spokesman Rocky Raab said.

NASA Projections

At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., spokesman Ed Medal said the shuttle program now has solid fuel for four complete rocket motors and a test motor. “That will take us into next year, given the current schedule,” he said.

NASA gets roughly half of its solid fuel from Pacific Engineering and half from Kerr-McGee and has ordered enough of the material to support 24 shuttle flights a year, Medal said, giving the agency a sizable cushion against the loss of Pacific Engineering’s output.

Neither NASA nor the Pentagon has ever stationed safety or quality inspectors at the Henderson plant; both agencies inspect the material as it arrives at the plants where it is installed in rockets, such as Morton Thiokol Inc.’s MX missile plant near Brigham City, Utah.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Louis Sahagun in Henderson, Nev.; John Hurst in Carson City; John Broder and Paul Houston in Washington, and Maura Dolan, Larry Gordon, Patt Morrison and Ronald B. Taylor in Los Angeles.