Maker of Toxic Gas to Move Plant From La Mesa to Arizona
Phoenix Research Corp., the La Mesa firm that has come under fire for producing deadly gases in a populated area, announced Monday that it will move its operations to a remote industrial park in Kingman, Ariz.
Union Carbide, the parent company of Phoenix, completed a $300,000 transaction Monday for 36 acres in a corner of the Kingman industrial park, where it plans to break ground next month for an $8-million, 25,000-square-foot manufacturing complex to incorporate the Phoenix operations with other gas production, company spokesman Jim Secor said.
Follows on Heels of Agreement
Monday’s announcement comes less than a week after Phoenix signed an agreement with the city of La Mesa, promising to shut down its controversial plant by Dec. 31, 1989. In return, the city agreed not to take action under a long-ignored zoning ordinance to declare the plant a public danger and have it closed.
Looking for New Location
Secor said Union Carbide officials began investigating relocating Phoenix to Kingman--a city of 24,000 in the northwest corner of Arizona, more than 100 miles east of Las Vegas--about nine months ago.
“It is a conscious effort on our part to move facilities where we feel it is beneficial for us to make our operations more efficient,” Secor said. “Obviously, in La Mesa we’re committed to moving for reasons you well know. That is a particular instance where the community grew up around us to a point where we do believe that it is not appropriate to have our facilities surrounded by all those other things.
“We would have made this move without the protests,” Secor said of the most recent agitation over the continued operation of the Phoenix plant. “I think, given a few more months of time, Phoenix would have made its own decision to move, without the public pressure.”
But one local environmentalist, who said she was pleased with Monday’s announcement, said she doubted that Phoenix would have made the move on its own.
“For Union Carbide representatives to even imply that community pressure wasn’t even a factor here is absurd,” said Diane Takvorian, director of the Environmental Health Coalition. “If the community hadn’t applied pressure, more recently in the last three months, this company would not have made this move.”
Kingman Officials Satisfied
Kingman officials said Monday that they are satisfied that the new Union Carbide plant will not pose a hazard to the community. The park, operated by the Mohave County Airport Authority, is isolated and accessible by rail and two major highways.
Jim Wilkinson, the airport authority’s executive director, said the new plant will be 2,000 feet from any business and at least 5 miles from the nearest residence. It will be built in the middle of its 36-acre tract, which abuts a 40-acre abandoned landfill, he said.
Wilkinson and other Kingman leaders said they investigated the potential safety problems and were assured by company representatives and other environmental experts that the plant would be safe.
“We looked at the risks, and we know there are risks,” Wilkinson said. “We tried to manage those risks the best we can, primarily through isolation.”
Kingman officials said their citizens are not upset with the prospect of Union Carbide coming to town. Referring to the controversy over Phoenix in La Mesa, Wilkinson added: “We hope this is a win-win situation for both communities.”
Public Protests
Since 1973, Phoenix operated in relative obscurity, producing arsine and phosphine in a nondescript building at 8075 Alvarado Road. Public protests erupted in 1985, after publications revealed the nature of the gases, which are considered among the most deadly known.
Federal limits for the gases, which are used to alter the electrical characteristics of silicon and similar materials, are very minimal--0.3 parts per million for phosphine and 0.05 ppm for arsine. A whiff of 500 ppm of arsine would cause instant death because that concentration would freeze the hemoglobin in the red blood cells.
Public protests were met with promises by Phoenix officials to move, but their first relocation attempt died in March, 1987, when Union Carbide abandoned its efforts to buy land in Washougal, Wash.
Meanwhile, attempts by local air-pollution officials to regulate or shut the plant were met with resistance by Phoenix, which obtained a court order to keep operating without environmental controls.
The company has since agreed to install a $300,000 “scrubber” to sanitize any toxic gas leaks, but official tests have yet to determine whether the equipment will be effective, air pollution officials said Monday.
A new wave of protests mobilized this summer after The Times reported in April that the Phoenix plant was still operating without environmental controls near hospitals, the Grossmont Shopping center and residences. Since then, said Takvorian, a citizens’ group has been formed and La Mesa City Hall has been flooded with at least 3,000 letters calling for closure of the plant.
During the latest round of protests, La Mesa officials also acknowledged that they failed to enact a 1986 zoning ordinance that would have given the City Council the power to declare the plant a “nonconforming use” and shut it as a health and safety hazard. La Mesa Planning Director Dave Wear said the city didn’t want to duplicate efforts of air-pollution officials.
Last Tuesday, La Mesa council members agreed not to invoke the ordinance if Phoenix would abandon its plant by Dec. 31, 1989.
Secor said the Kingman operation, which will come under the Linde Division of Union Carbide Industrial Gasses, will also handle arsine and phosphine production from the company’s Dallas and Keasbey, N.J., plants.
