La Mesa Toxic Gas Plant to Shut Down Dec. 15

The Phoenix Research Corp., which has been embroiled in a three-year legal dispute with the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District over its production of toxic gases, said Thursday it will shut its La Mesa plant Dec. 15 and leave the county by the end of the year.

The announcement was made before Superior Court Judge Robert C. Thaxton Jr., who was hearing the air-control district’s motion to have a court injunction lifted so Phoenix could be forced to stop manufacturing arsine and phosphine. The gases are used by electronics companies to produce circuit boards.

Although saying that he had no jurisdiction to immediately dissolve the injunction obtained by Phoenix in earlier court proceedings, Thaxton said he will lift it Dec. 15--the day the company says it will voluntarily stop making the gases.

“We agree to the dissolution of the injunction on Dec. 15 because by then we will have stopped manufacturing (the gases),” said B. J. Kirwan of Latham & Watkins, the Los Angeles-based law firm representing Phoenix.

But Kirwan said that Phoenix will remain in La Mesa until the end of the year. “We’ll need that time to move and transport everything to our new plant.” Phoenix is relocating to a remote plant being completed outside Kingman, Ariz.

APCD officials expressed concern that the deadly gases will be transported through the county during the company’s move.

Paul Sidhu, the district’s deputy director, said, however, that the APCD has no power to regulate the transportation of such gases. But Sidhu added that, on Dec. 15, APCD inspectors will be sent to the La Mesa plant to confirm that production has indeed stopped.

The injunction, which prohibited the district from enforcing its regulations at the plant, was obtained by Phoenix as part of a 1986 court suit that challenged the APCD’s right to issue operating permits.

But, because that case is now at the appellate level, Thaxton said, he has no authority to address any element of the case until the higher courts rule.

“The filing of an appeal preserves the case in its entirety,” Kirwan said. “It preserves everything within it and affected by it.” In essence, Kirwan explained, Thaxton simply approved Phoenix’s decision to voluntarily stop production--an action that would dissolve the injunction.