La Mesa Maker of Toxic Gas Is Denied Permit

The San Diego County Air Pollution Control District for the second time has denied an operating permit to Phoenix Research Corp., which produces highly toxic arsine and phosphine gases at its La Mesa plant.

However, the denial could soon become moot because officials at Union Carbide’s Linde Division, Phoenix Research’s parent company, said Tuesday that the controversial plant will be closed in late December. The company will begin producing the two deadly gases at a remote plant now being completed in rural Arizona, Linde spokesman Jim Secor said.

APCD Control Officer R. J. Sommerville said Tuesday that the plant “should not be operating at all” in La Mesa because the gases pose a severe threat to the health and safety of nearby residents and businesses.

Doubts About Closure

Sommerville also expressed doubt that Linde will actually close the plant by the end of the year. In 1987, Linde failed to complete a previously announced move to Washington state.

Linde, which expects to complete construction of the plant near Kingman, Ariz., by the end of January, has obtained applicable state environmental permits, said James A. Wilkinson, executive director of the Mohave County Airport Authority, a public agency that has sold land to Linde. Linde will not receive an operating permit until state regulators inspect the finished plant, he said.

The San Diego permit denial will have little or no immediate effect because regulators are “unable to enforce air pollution control laws against the firm” under a lawsuit initiated by Phoenix Research, Sommerville said.

That court fight stemmed from the air pollution district’s 1985 attempt to stop production of the gases at Phoenix Research. The plant has operated in La Mesa for 15 years, but regulators first learned about its existence from news reports in 1985.

In 1986, shortly after the district first refused to issue a permit, Phoenix Research won a court injunction that prohibited the district from enforcing its regulations at the plant. The company filed a court suit that challenged the district’s right to issue permits and later appealed a Superior Court decision that recognized the district’s right to do so.

Several months ago, Phoenix Research installed a scrubber, a pollution-control device designed to eliminate 99.9% of the arsine and phosphine gas that might otherwise escape into the atmosphere during an accident. Then, Sommerville said, the APCD and Phoenix Research agreed that the district would issue a permit only if tests proved that the device neutralized 99.9% of the toxic gases that would escape during a “worst case” accident.

Unhappy With Test Results

The district withheld the permit in a letter to Phoenix on Friday after tests conducted by the company at another scrubber in another state failed to reach the 99.9% efficiency level, Sommerville said. The scrubber “has reduced the risk to the community but is still inadequate to meet APCD safety standards,” he said.

Secor on Tuesday said that the scrubber “did do what it was supposed to do” during the recent test. “The manufacturer of the scrubber has warranted to us that it’s 99.9% effective,” he said.

Secor, who said the plant has “never had an incident” during its 15 years in La Mesa, said the scrubber is providing sufficient protection for nearby residents and businesses.

But Sommerville, who said he does not know for sure whether the scrubber is now in use, said Tuesday that an accidental release of gases into the atmosphere would still cause a severe threat to people who live or work near the plant, at 8075 Alvarado Road.

Federal limits for the two gases are extremely low--0.3 parts per million (ppm) for phosphine and 0.05 ppm for arsine. A whiff of 500 ppm of arsine causes instant death by freezing the hemoglobin in red blood cells.

According to county records, Phoenix Research at any one time has on hand as much as 2,250 pounds of the deadly gas, which electronics companies use to produce circuit boards.

Goal Seems Unmet

Diane Takvorian, executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Health Coalition, on Tuesday questioned whether the permit refusal will have any effect. “It sounds like it doesn’t achieve the goal that the community wants, which is to shut the facility down,” she said.

Secor reaffirmed that the plant will leave San Diego for a new location outside Kingman by Dec. 31. “We’re intending to operate at La Mesa no longer than the end of this year, about three more months,” he said.

But the permit denial will not speed the plant’s closing. “I don’t see us shutting down any earlier,” Secor said.

The company has 10 days to appeal the air pollution district’s decision, and both sides have the option of going back to court, Sommerville said.

The plant that has generated so much concern in La Mesa has also riled residents in Kingman, a small town in the northwest corner of Arizona, more than 100 miles east of Las Vegas. Linde’s plan to build a plant in an industrial park near the county airport fell apart earlier this year after activists drew heavy support from many of Kingman’s 12,000 residents.

The company subsequently acquired another tract that sits 11 miles south of town. “It’s much more isolated,” Wilkinson said. “There ain’t a swinging thing out there. They have to build their own roads . . . and drill their own wells.”

When completed, the plant--along with a sister plant near the airport that will produce relatively benign gases--will provide about 25 new jobs for residents, Wilkinson said. Another 25 employees will move to the town from existing Linde operations.

Although a “hard-core group” still opposes the plant, a “clear majority” now favors it at the far-flung location, Wilkinson said. However, the opposition “has set us way back in terms of doing economic development,” Wilkinson said. “As far as our reputation goes, it set us back at least two years.”

A Phoenix Research executive earlier this year said that the company would spend at least $225,000 on the scrubber. The device would be moved to the new plant in Arizona before gas production begins, the executive said.