Chemical Cited by EPA No Longer in Use, Refinery Says

Shell Oil’s refinery in Carson, whose chemical emissions were cited in a federal report as posing one of the nation’s worst cancer risks, stopped using the carcinogenic chemical responsible more than a year ago, a senior refinery official said.

“We discontinued the use of that over a year ago,” Shell refinery manager Ron Swofford said Friday.

Meanwhile, officials at a second Los Angeles County facility cited in the same U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report denied Friday that the plant’s emissions pose a toxic threat.

Steve Toth, plant manager of Baxter Pharmaseal in Irwindale, said his company is permitted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to use 1,000 pounds of ethylene oxide daily.

“We comply with all the laws and do not emit toxins into the atmosphere,” he said. “Those numbers (in the EPA report) don’t reflect the way we do business.”

The Shell Oil and Baxter Pharmaseal facilities were responding to an EPA report, made available Thursday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), that indicated they are among 205 plants around the nation where neighboring residents face a theoretical lifetime risk of 1 in 1,000 or more of getting cancer from air emissions. Also included among sites in Los Angeles County was Micro-Biotrol’s facility in Vernon. Baxter Pharmaseal was listed in the report by the name American Pharmaceutical.

Unocal Corp.’s La Mirada chemical plant was listed among the nation’s most hazardous plants with a 1-in-100 risk of causing cancer. Unocal denied Thursday that emissions from its plant posed a health threat.

The EPA generally considers a 1-in-1 million risk acceptable.

The federal agency, however, has said the report was based on old data and was not intended to assess public health risks at individual sites.

The chemical posing the danger at Shell was the potent carcinogen hexavalent chromium, which Shell and most other refineries have used for years to control corrosion in cooling towers.

According to the EPA data, Shell emitted about 1,890 pounds of the substance in 1984.

Chevron Studied

The Chevron refinery in El Segundo, also studied by the EPA, released about 310 pounds that year, producing a lower lifetime cancer risk of 7 in 100,000, according to Jim Weigold, deputy director of the EPA’s Emission Standards Division.

Weigold said no other refineries in Los Angeles County were studied for hexavalent chromium emissions.

Shell’s Swofford said his refinery had switched to less dangerous chemicals.

“It has only been a few years ago that the subject came up,” he said. “People immediately began to look for other ways. Some substitutes got developed by some of the suppliers of cooling water treating chemicals.”

On July 7, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, following the lead of the California Air Resources Board, is set to adopt a rule that would ban hexavalent chromium compounds in any cooling system.

Sterilize Hospital Gear

At Baxter Pharmaseal, ethylene oxide is used to sterilize disposable hospital equipment, company spokesman Toth said. In gaseous form, it permeates the packaging of such items as oxygen masks and surgical trays.

Afterward, Toth said, the chemical waste is incinerated but produces no harmful pollutants.

AQMD officials said the incineration process is about 99% effective and that the firm has no history of violations.

The plant, located since 1961 in Irwindale, a San Gabriel Valley city of 1,230 residents, is owned by Baxter International, a $7-billion-a-year Illinois-based corporation that Toth said is the largest medical supplier in the United States.

Meanwhile, officials at Unocal have said the La Mirada plant has not had a “reportable” release of styrene butadiene resin, the compound at issue in the EPA report, in the past 10 years. A release of more than one pound of the resin must be reported to the EPA.

On Friday, Unocal Corp. Chairman Richard J. Stegemeier said: “The allegations of cancer risk to employees and neighbors of the plant are simply not true. The La Mirada plant has always operated in accord with all laws and regulations and with the highest regard for the safety of the employees and the plant’s neighbors.”

Since July, 1988, manufacturers that use large amounts of butadiene and other hazardous chemicals must disclose the amounts they routinely release into the environment through such means as evaporation or stacks. These releases would include amounts smaller than one pound.

Not a Manufacturing Site

Even though the Unocal plant has large amounts of hazardous chemicals on its site, it was not required to report any routine releases because it is not considered a manufacturing site. The plant makes the resin used in the manufacturing of latex paint and carpet backing, but its primary business is a solvent distribution center.

Officials of Micro-Biotrol in Vernon could not be reached Friday for comment on the EPA report.

Times environmental writer Maura Dolan contributed to this story.