Chemical Firm Says Industry Plant Would Be No Threat to Walnut
Bevan Cates was unprepared for the volatile reaction his company’s plans for a chemical plant in the City of Industry created last week in neighboring Walnut.
Cates, western regional vice president of Van Waters & Rogers Inc., said the company opened similar chemical distribution plants in Fresno and Anchorage in 1987 without the stiff opposition building in Walnut. “We’re surprised by the attitude of the (people) of Walnut,” Cates said. “Of all the projects we’ve built, this is the first time we’ve found this.”
Vow to Fight Project
The furor evident at a Walnut City Council meeting last week appears unlikely to subside. Residents are vowing to fight the project, despite the company’s good safety record and the opinion of a chemist hired by Walnut that the plant can operate safely.
“Who needs another Bhopal?” yelled a resident, in a reference to the 1984 chemical leak which killed more than 3,000 people in India. That comment appeared to sum up the fears of many in the capacity crowd of about 150, which overflowed the Walnut council chambers.
“We don’t want it, period,” said Walnut resident Bert McKenna, who lives in the neighborhood closest to the proposed plant and is starting to organize opposition to it. “We’re going to do everything we can to stop it,” he said.
Angry and anxious residents complained that their city has not mounted an aggressive effort to oppose the company’s relocation from the City of Commerce to within 1,500 feet of Walnut neighborhoods. The council, which had asked to hear from Cates about the project last week, is waiting for more information about it. be.
Councilman Tom Sykes said he could sympathize with the residents wanting quick action, but argued that the politicians need all the facts--including the city’s possible legal standing in the matter--before taking a stand. The city will receive a legal briefing on the proposal at its Feb. 8 meeting.
“I wouldn’t be surprised that the council, once they have all the information, will take a very stern response to this project,” he said.
Offer to Meet March 9
An offer by Cates to meet with residents on March 9 to answer questions did little to allay their fears about the project, which some of them claim would threaten both their health and their property values.
The uproar dates back to April, when the Industry City Council approved Van Waters & Rogers’ plans to relocate the plant from a site adjacent to Los Angeles residential property, to a 30.7-acre site just south of the intersection of Grand Avenue and Valley Boulevard, next to the Libbey Glass factory outlet.
As envisioned, the plant will be have up to 35 chemical storage tanks, a fleet of 30 trucks and about 250,000 square feet of warehouse and office space. The company will import chemicals by rail or tanker truck and repackage the chemicals into smaller quantities before shipping them to industrial customers in Southern California. The Walnut site would handle 57 chemicals, company officials said.
Seattle-Based Company
The company is a subsidiary of Seattle-based Univar Corp., which operates 110 such chemical distribution facilities throughout North America.
Annual sales are projected to reach about $125 million, and the $20-million facility will employ 230 people.
Company officials say they want to move from Commerce, where the operation is spread over two sites, to a larger, consolidated location.
Industry, acting without an environmental impact report, approved the project in April on a negative declaration--meaning that city staff had determined the plant’s environmental effects would be negligible, according to Industry City Engineer John J. Radecki Jr. Walnut officials said they may challenge the declaration.
Public Notices Posted
Industry officials made no attempt to notify Walnut or other surrounding cities of the project, but did follow legal requirements that they post notices at three public places indicating the intent to grant the declaration.
Walnut officials, who say they learned of the project in June from a citizen’s complaint, say they are outraged that they were not contacted by Industry officials.
“Maybe legally they weren’t required to notice us,” Sykes said. “But ethically or morally, they should have.”
City of Industry officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
The company, which has been located in Commerce for 34 years and operating in Southern California for more than a century, will need approval from 12 regulatory agencies in order to make the move, said Victor R. Johnson, an engineer hired by Van Waters & Rogers for the project. Some of the regulators include the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the county Fire Department, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Cates estimated that the permit process would last another 6 to 9 months.
The Commerce plant has received high marks from regulators, who said the company is an industry leader in safety. The company has had no major incidents and the few reported problems have been relatively slight, according to regulators.
“They have small, minor violations, like all of them, but they have a pretty good track record,” said Inspector Doug Pignet, of the county Fire Department’s petrochemical unit. “If I lived there (in Walnut), it wouldn’t be a concern of mine . . . knowing how they operate.”
In the past 10 years, the single biggest incident the company experienced was a spill of 100 gallons of rubbing alcohol, Cates said.
“In the 100-plus years we’ve been in business, we’ve never had a chemical spill that harmed the public,” he said.
Contaminated Soil in 1985
Jean Granucci, spokeswoman for the waste management division of the county Department of Public Works, said the company was cited in 1985 for having contaminated soil at its plant, a result of leaky tanks. Of the 50 tanks at the Commerce plant, 13 have been taken out of service, she said.
Cates said the new plant would be built atop a concrete slab, with a liner beneath it, to prevent any spilled chemicals from reaching the soil.
Commerce officials said the company has an excellent working relationship with the city, which stands to lose $400,000 in annual taxes. “I’m sorry to see them go,” said Raymond C. Ramirez, assistant director of community development.
Desire to Be Good Neighbor
At the Walnut meeting Wednesday, Cates tried to mollify the residents fears, highlighting the company’s safety record and stressing its desire to be a good neighbor.
Most of the chemicals handled by the company are common compounds found in the home, Cates said. One of them, hydrochloric acid, is used for swimming pools.
“Those of you who handle that product do so routinely; so do we,” he said. “We believe we’re more qualified.”
Al Heeseman, the chemical engineer hired by Walnut, minimized the threat posed by the plant. Heeseman said that in a worst-case scenario--a major earthquake, an explosion or a large tank failure--seven of the chemicals the company sells could trigger a major incident.
Heeseman put the odds of that happening at “a million to one,” or about the same as winning big in the state Lottery.
Most of the residents at the meeting were skeptical of the risk estimates, and even those who accepted Cates’ and Heeseman’s assertions remained opposed to the plant.
“I don’t care how remote the odds are,” Sykes said. “It could still happen.”
Saying any risk is too much, McKenna and other residents criticized the council for not opposing the project. They said the elected officials seemed resigned to the plant going in.
“What we want is the City Council to take the lead in fighting it, and they are not doing so,” McKenna said. “If you wait and see, it’s too late, and that thing gets built.”
Timely Opposition
Denying that the city is dragging its feet, Walnut Mayor Drexel L. Smith said after the meeting that the best approach may be to attack the plant proposal while it moves through the permit approval process.
“We may not have voiced a timely objection to the City of Industry location process,” he said. “But we’re going to be timely in opposing it (in) the regulatory phase.”
