Workers Near Unocal Plant Air Complaints

Workers near the Unocal Corp. chemical plant in La Mirada, unsettled by the federal report about potentially cancer-causing emissions there, complained Thursday that noxious fumes from the facility give them headaches and coat their cars with a thick white film.

“You can smell it all over the neighborhood,” said G. J. Klanian, owner of a small asphalt company across the street from the plant. “Some of the employees here say it makes their eyes burn.”

Taking a whiff of the air outside the plant, he pronounced the sharp odor to be “mild” at the moment.

“It gets very strong sometimes,” he said. “You can taste it in the roof of your mouth.”

His daughter, Charlene Klanian, who serves as general manager of their company, said employees once had to be sent home because of headaches from the smell.

“If you are here working, it kind of makes you feel real drowsy and kind of sick to your stomach . . . ,” she said. “It makes you sluggish.”

Unocal spokesman Barry Lane was at a loss to explain what produces the odor and the film that the Klanians and others near the plant complained about. He said the company had not had a “reportable” release of styrene butadiene resin, the compound at issue in the federal Environmental Protection Agency report, in the past 10 years.

A release of more than one pound of the resin, which is used in the manufacture of latex paint and carpet backing, must be reported to the EPA. The plant is a solvent distribution facility and manufactures the resin.

Lane said the cancer risk estimated by the agency was not based on the plant’s performance but on models for butadiene plants, and he warned that the report might “unnecessarily alarm” people.

“We have no data to conclude that a significant cancer risk exists nor can we rely upon the conclusion of the EPA study,” he said.

Among 205 Plants

The Unocal plant was among 205 industrial plants targeted by the EPA for toxic emissions. The agency said an individual may have a 1 in 100 chance of getting cancer from emissions alone at the La Mirada plant.

Despite the limitations of the EPA analysis, news reports about it did frighten some nearby workers who have long been suspicious about the mysterious odors coming from the plant.

Charlene Klanian said that when she complained to the company about the fumes, she was told they came from harmless steam released from the plant’s cooling tanks. “They said, ‘It’s just steamy water, that’s all your smelling,’ ” she recalled.

Bill Frazer, an employee at the West Coast Aluminum Heat Treating Co., two doors from the asphalt company, said he has called the Unocal plant to complain about milky white droplets that sometimes coat employees’ cars.

“They said, ‘We’ll check on it,’ and then all of a sudden, we don’t have that white stuff on our cars,” he said.

David Whitney, manager of the Unocal plant, said he did not know the origin of the white film. “In the business we are in there is from time to time some odor,” he said, but insisted the source definitely was not butadiene.

The plant, which was built in 1967 at Alondra and Valley View Boulevards, has enjoyed friendly relations with the quiet, prosperous community of La Mirada, located 19 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles on the Orange County border. City officials seemed surprised, even stunned, by the report and immediately sought to get copies of it.

So much is Unocal held in good stead with the city that it was being given a “beautification” award at City Hall Thursday in appreciation of the lush lawn and multicolored flowers in front of the low brick building at the plant’s entrance.

Employees Not Worried

Plant employees, interviewed at lunch time outside the facility, said they were not worried about getting cancer from toxins.

“The company takes excellent care of us,” said Diego Botero, 33. “They give us all the safety equipment we need--goggles, hard hats, special suits, masks. I am very happy with the care.”

The nearest residential neighborhood is a half mile from the plant and usually upwind. Most residents interviewed Thursday said they had never noticed any odors or particular pollution from the industrial area just beyond the railroad tracks, and a woman who complained about an occasional odor of ammonia or ether noted that she could not tell where it came from. Nevertheless, some of these residents were disconcerted by the EPA’s preliminary cancer estimates.

“It doesn’t sound good, of course,” said Daniel Black, 48, a template maker.

“I’m worried now, of course,” said Frances West, 56, who owns a machine shop with her husband. “I had thought we were a safe distance.”