Simi Weighs Zoning Law on Toxic Material : Hazards: Applications for city building permits or tax certificates would have to include a list of any hazardous substances a business planned to use.

Nearly a year after a potentially lethal chlorine gas leak forced about 12,000 people from their homes and jobs, Simi Valley is considering an ordinance that would compel new businesses to disclose whether they use hazardous materials.

In addition to meeting existing requirements to notify state and county agencies, the ordinance also would require businesses storing hazardous materials to inform the city.

The measure would fill gaps in information maintained by the Ventura County Fire Department and the Simi Valley County Sanitation District, among other regulators, and aid the city in enforcing its zoning code, Mayor Gregory Stratton said.

Under the proposed ordinance--to be introduced at the City Council’s Nov. 6 meeting--new businesses would be required to disclose plans to use hazardous materials when they apply for construction permits or business-tax certificates. Existing firms would have to supply or update the information when they pay their yearly business taxes to the city.

A special occupancy permit would be required from the city as well as the sanitation district and other regulating agencies. In cases where new businesses move into existing buildings, the landlord would be responsible for making sure that tenants provide the information to the city and obtain a permit.

“Our history says, once you allow someone to open up, it’s a much more difficult task to close them down,” Stratton said. “We’re trying to be up front with people and say, ‘Tell us what you’re doing, and we’ll tell you where you can do it.’ The bottom line is, we believe we have to know.”

State and federal regulations already require firms handling hazardous materials to submit lists of the substances and their uses to the local fire department, sewer authority, county environmental health department and county air pollution control district. Simi Valley does not have its own fire department but relies on the county department.

Stratton and consultant Lynn M. Takaichi of Ventura said the proposed ordinance was unusual in its approach because it emphasizes zoning control instead of emergency response, as do most hazardous materials ordinances. It would immediately alert Simi Valley to the presence of hazardous materials and make it harder for businesses to ignore reporting requirements, they said.

“A city ordinance would catch them from the beginning,” said Councilwoman Ann Rock, who has a degree in chemical engineering and is chairwoman of a committee formed to study the issue.

The city of Moorpark adopted an ordinance in July that requires businesses to register with the city and to disclose the chemicals they handle, store or emit. Susan Cauldwell, an assistant to the city manager, said the measure was aimed more at determining what kinds of businesses operate in the city than at documenting hazardous materials.

Simi Valley’s awareness of hazardous materials was heightened by two recent episodes, according to Rock and Stratton: noxious fumes from a spa manufacturing plant that drifted into nearby houses, and the chlorine leak involving the evacuation of thousands.

The Jan. 5 leak produced a one-square-mile-sized cloud of chlorine gas from a textile plant that was already under investigation for releasing dyes into the city sewer system. An estimated 12,000 people were routed from their homes and businesses within a five-mile radius, and part of the Simi Valley Freeway was closed during the 12-hour incident.

In civil lawsuits pending in Ventura Superior Court, the city is trying to recover $100,000 in emergency-response costs from Travelin’ West Textiles and its parent company, Melody Knitting Mills, said Byron Lawler, the attorney handling the cases for the city. In addition, the sanitation district is seeking $3.5 million in unpaid users’ fees, Lawler said. The textile company has filed a countersuit against the city, alleging harassment, he said.

Less dramatic, but more influential, Stratton said, was a city investigation of Hydro Systems, a spa manufacturer whose residential neighbors complained last year about a consistently offensive smell.

Although the styrene fumes posed more of a nuisance than a serious health threat, a city investigation found that emission of any noxious odor is prohibited in a light industrial zone, and that Hydro Systems had been issued a zoning permit without knowledge of its manufacturing process, officials said.

Hydro Systems has cooperated with the city, installed a filtration system, and the styrene fumes are no longer a problem, Stratton said. But he said the episode highlighted the city’s ignorance of the substances used and produced by about 275 industries within its borders.

The Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce is expected to speak against the disclosure ordinance at the Nov. 6 meeting.

Dick Odle, a chamber spokesman and local businessman, said the proposed measure was redundant and could subject city industries to a host of expenses that would make them less competitive.

For example, additional permit fees are included in a current draft of the ordinance. But Odle said the Chamber of Commerce was particularly concerned about the city inspections that would be required before the issuing of hazardous-materials permits.

The inspections could lead to costly renovations, especially for businesses in older buildings.