Shut Phoenix Plant

In 1985, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District first learned that the Phoenix Corp. in La Mesa had been manufacturing deadly gases used in the electronics industry without a valid permit for more than 10 years.

The discovery was made thanks to investigations by the Environmental Health Coalition. Public disclosure first came in an article in San Diego Magazine followed by several articles in the Los Angeles Times.

According to a recent Times article (“Beleaguered Maker of Deadly Gases to Quit La Mesa for Secret Site,” Oct. 20), Phoenix has continued to operate for the past three years despite efforts by the La Mesa City Council and the Air Pollution Control District to stop the company.

Phoenix produces arsine and phosphine gas, two deadly industrial gases used in the manufacturing of silicon chips. Arsine is considered three times more toxic than methyl isocyanate, the liquid chemical that leaked from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing thousands.

Arsine and phosphine are colorless gases, not liquids, so they are even harder to detect and contain, and the risk of leaks may be even greater.

Phoenix, a Union Carbide subsidiary, claims it will move its plant to an undisclosed out-of-state location by the end of 1989, but it continues to operate. The state Department of Health Services should close this plant immediately, since efforts by city and county authorities have, for three years, been unsuccessful. Safer alternatives to the use of deadly gases in silicon-chip manufacturing now exist.

Until production of these gases is banned, other communities will live with the same fear and uncertainty that La Mesa lives with now.

EDWARD D. GORHAM

San Diego