Unhappy Residents Return Home After Chemical Scare

Residents evacuated overnight from a Lincoln Heights neighborhood returned to their homes Tuesday after officials declared that the danger from potentially lethal chemicals from a fire at a nearby metal-plating plant was over.

But the evacuees were not happy.

“A lot of people are angry,” said Salvador Vidaurri, 25, whose family, like an estimated 7,000 other residents of the area around the plant, were forced to spend the night with relatives, friends or at a shelter set up by the Red Cross at Dodger Stadium. “We’re all wondering what this plant is doing here in the middle of our neighborhood.”

Several thousand more people were sent home from schools and businesses in the area.

Sister Sharon Dempsey, Sacred Heart Elementary School principal, said she shares the concern of parents that they were not forewarned of the potential danger so near the school.

If, as feared by authorities, the chemicals inside the plant had erupted into a deadly cloud of cyanide, Dempsey said she would have had no way of quickly evacuating the children. The school is one of five in the eight-square-block evacuation area.

While there is a city ordinance that requires that firms handling hazardous chemicals file reports with the Fire Department, there is no law that requires notification of nearby residents, according to city fire and health officials.

“I’m not aware of any law requiring a business to notify nearby residents of their existence and the chemicals they work with,” said Bill Jones, chief of investigations for the hazardous materials control program of the county Department of Health Services. “And there are thousands and thousands of businesses spread throughout the county, in and out of industrial and some residential areas, that generate hazardous wastes.”

Jones said it has become a fact of modern urban life. He suggested that one answer to the problem might be to target plants that work with highly toxic chemicals that are near schools and residences, such as the Lincoln Heights firm, for relocation or scaling down of operations.

“I don’t have any answers,” he added. “It’s up to the lawmakers and policy-makers who will review this incident.”

It was learned late Tuesday that the city attorney’s office had asked the Fire Department to identify any Fire Code violations committed by the firm, including the purported failure to file a plan for dealing with emergencies involving toxic chemicals. So-called “business plans” are required under the city ordinance and 3-year-old state law.

Builders Hardware Finishers Inc., which has operated at 1846 Sichel Ave., since at least the mid-1970s, has been fined and penalized several times for improperly handling hazardous wastes.

Dempsey said the problem of hazardous chemical plants in the neighborhood would no doubt be raised at an upcoming parents meeting.

“We need to be aware of this plant and whether there are any other plants in the area,” she said.

The educator also said she planned to ask fire and health authorities to help the school plan better for such an emergency.

“We know there are factories around here, but I never thought they had any hazardous chemicals,” said Rosie Crijalva, 37, who with a sister and both their children spent the night with relatives. “You hear about these things happening everywhere else, but you never expect it to happen next door to you.”

Some residents may have noticed the triangular sign outside the building, which warns of hazardous materials, and the trucks that picked up chemical wastes at the plant several times a month.

Still, said a Fire Department spokesman, “people don’t realize the types of chemicals involved or the amount of work such companies are doing.”

Despite the concerns of residents and officials, by Tuesday morning the neighborhood appeared to be regaining its normal pace as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineers took over control of the cleanup operation at the plant.

EPA officials estimated that clearing the remaining toxic chemicals from the charred, cinder-block building could run as high as $250,000 and take about 10 days to complete. Most of the money will initially come through the EPA’s Superfund, which provides money to clean up hazardous waste sites. But the government will try to recover the money from the property owners and the firm’s owners, EPA officials said.

The immediate threat following the fire was that water used in the firefighting operation, which had mixed with cyanide, would come into contact with acids stored in metal drums inside the building, Battalion Chief Ken Dameron said. But most of that water was pumped out of the building Monday, he said.

“Now our main problem is getting the remaining chemicals into more stable containers,” said Christopher Weden, heading the operation for the EPA.