Plant to Store Hazardous Cargo Until Safety Tests Are Complete

A Chula Vista toxic-waste treatment plant will store the cargo that caught fire Tuesday aboard a truck until tests on the materials are conducted and it can be shipped to an out-of-state incinerator, officials said.

Federal, state, county and Chula Vista city officials are investigating the blaze. They are scheduled to meet Friday at Appropriate Technologies II to determine if the load is safe to move, said Tim Sparks, general manager of the plant.

A 55-gallon drum of acrylic resin on a 40-foot trailer being pulled by the truck caught on fire as the truck climbed a hill on Maxwell Road near the plant’s entrance.

The resin was part of a 70-container load bound for three hazardous-treatment and storage sites, including another San Diego toxic site, Pacific Treatment Corp. in Logan Heights, said Dan Avera, chief of the county’s hazardous materials management division. The resin was from Arvinyl in Corona, Calif., Avera said.

The portion of the load heading for Appropriate Technologies II was drug-lab chemicals seized in Los Angeles and Riverside County, said Ken Kazarian, plant president. A hazardous-waste site in Santa Barbara was the third destination, he added.

Officials said they are investigating whether the resin was properly packaged. Appropriate Technologies II will repackage the resin, which will be trucked to an incinerator in Houston, Sparks said.

In the meantime, the Chula Vista City Council has stepped up its effort to close the plant, which is less than a mile from a residential area.

The council, which last month passed a resolution urging the state and county to relocate the plant, voted 5-0 Tuesday night to form a task force to find a new site.

Appropriate Technologies II has been the scene of two toxic-waste fires in less than two months. The plant has agreed, because of the incident, not to accept deliveries from the Los Angeles-based Disposal Control Service, which also trucked the chlorine that caught fire in February, Sparks said.