Toxic-Chemicals Study Names 12 County Sites

Twelve Orange County manufacturing plants are among 1,500 nationwide that emitted toxic chemicals into the air in 1987, according to a new environmental report issued in conjunction with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study of toxic pollution.

Orange County, however, was not among the top 25 counties in the nation ranked for toxic air contaminants by the EPA. The agency did not name any industrial plants in its summary, referring only to the individual counties.

However, a separate report prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council on the basis of the EPA data listed the 12 Orange County plants as among U.S. firms emitting cancer-causing chemicals or suspected carcinogens.

The New York City-based council, a private, nonprofit environmental group, listed an Eastman Kodak Co. facility in Rochester, N.Y., as the largest emitter of individual carcinogenic air pollutants in the nation, with emissions totaling 8,920,000 pounds of methylene chloride, a suspected carcinogen used as a cleaning agent.

The council data were derived from an EPA report that seeks for the first time to provide a national inventory of more than 300 cancer-causing and other hazardous chemicals released by manufacturing facilities into the air, land and water.

But government officials have cautioned that this is raw data and that no official assessment will be made of the health risk posed by toxic releases at any individual industrial site.

Many businesses named on the list have cautioned that the list may reflect out-of-date information and may unnecessarily alarm people when the nature and the long-range effects of the chemicals remain far from certain.

None of the Orange County factories named by the council in its report was in the top 125 facilities listed. The council report ranks only those companies releasing one or more of 11 of the most hazardous chemical compounds.

Leading the list in Orange County was Aerochem Inc. of Orange, followed by Kaynar Mfg., a division of Microdot Aerospace in Fullerton, and Kwikset Corp. of Anaheim.

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, ranked eighth among U.S. counties in 1987. And according to the EPA, Los Angeles County firms generated 33,626,407 pounds of toxins--40.7% of the toxic emissions in the state.

The information was provided to the EPA under the 1986 “community right-to-know” law, which required major industrial facilities to file annual toxic release reports with the government detailing types and amounts of chemical pollution emitted.

Charles Elkins, director of EPA’s toxics program, said the agency would use the data to identify toxic “hot spots” across the country--heavily industrialized areas with large numbers of plants emitting chemical pollutants.

No official assessment has been made of the health risk posed by toxic releases at any individual industrial sites. TOP COUNTY INDUSTRIAL POLLUTERS Following are the 12 Orange County firms on the Natural Resources Defense Council list. Estimates of air emissions of cancer-causing chemicals or suspected carcinogens are based on reports provided by individual industries to the government:

* Volume Facility Location Chemical (in pounds) Aerochem Inc. Orange Perchloroethylene 404,795 Kaynar Mfg. Fullerton Perchloroethylene 196,356 Microdot Aerospace Kwikset Corp. Anaheim Perchloroethylene 97,227 Ricoh Irvine Perchloroethylene 81,000 Electronics Inc. Bentley Irvine Methylene chloride 59,140 Laboratories Inc. Kimberly-Clark Corp. Fullerton Methylene chloride 50,000 Hixson Newport Beach Perchloroethylene 49,500 Metal Finishing Cal-Compack Santa Ana Ethylene oxide 45,200 Foods Inc. Bentley Irvine Ethylene oxide 33,062 Laboratories Inc. Arrowhead Products Los Alamitos Perchloroethylene 32,481 Ciba-Geigy Corp. Santa Ana Methylene chloride 27,340 Microsemi Corp. Santa Ana Perchloroethylene 24,000 Sterilization Anaheim Ethylene oxide 22,000 Services Aerochem Inc. Orange Chromium compounds 4,792

* Based on 1987 figures provided by companies to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Source: “A Who’s Who of American Toxic Air Polluters,” the Natural Resources Defense Council, June, 1989.