County Officials Warn Chemical Plant of Closure

Los Angeles County officials Thursday threatened to close the Commerce chemical plant where a fire and gas leak led to two evacuations last weekend unless as many as six regulatory agencies are satisfied that corrective measures will ensure against future spills.

The threat by Ralph Lopez, a ranking Health Department official, came during an administrative hearing called by authorities to review the accidents in which as many as 28,000 Eastside residents were evacuated after toxic clouds were emitted from the Grow Group Inc. plant.

Company officials did not respond during the closed-door meeting to Lopez’s comments, other than to assure officials from the county Fire Department, the state Department of Emergency Services, the state attorney general’s office and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office that they were doing all that they could to prevent such incidents.

“We outlined the steps that have been taken to safeguard the facility,” said company attorney Edwin V. Woodsome Jr. afterward. He said the company has completed a mandatory evacuation plan for the plant and a training program for about 200 employees. “In general, I think they (county officials) were satisfied.”

But that view was not shared by Lopez, who heads the Health Department’s environmental health and health facilities units. Immediately after the weekend problems, officials ordered the closure of the company’s warehouse, and Lopez said he would seek an agreement from the company to close the entire plant, which manufactures bleach, plastic containers and chlorine pellets for swimming pools, until all corrective measures are taken.

If the company refused to close the plant voluntarily, Lopez said, the Health Department and other agencies would go to court.

‘The Bottom Line’

“I don’t want to mislead anybody,” Lopez said after the hearing. “Even though they seemed to satisfy some of the Health Department’s concerns, they did not, in my opinion, satisfy other agencies’ concerns and requirements. The bottom line is, you have to satisfy us all.”

County officials said the threat of closure--among several options being considered--stemmed from the company’s apparent failure to remove more than 250 barrels of hazardous waste after an Aug. 10 chemical spill.

Company officials said repackaging to transfer the material from wood to metal barrels for shipment has been going on since that incident and even up to last weekend, and is now completed. That statement was met with skepticism from officials of the Health Department’s hazardous waste control program. “We have no evidence to substantiate that,” program chief Anastacio Medina said.

The information gathered by authorities at the administrative hearing will likely be forwarded to the district attorney’s office next week for possible prosecution. Grow Group has already been served with notices of violation by the AQMD.