Staff Study of Chemical Risk Stops Short of Ban : Industry: Report prepared for air quality board recommends safety measures. Danger at five plants is cited.

The bulk use of hydrogen fluoride at five Los Angeles County industrial plants poses a “significant public health risk,” but the problem should be addressed by installing safety equipment, not by banning use of the toxic chemical, according to a draft report prepared for regional air quality officials.

The draft recommendation--to permit the continued use of the chemical rather than require an expensive conversion to a less hazardous one--is portrayed in the report by South Coast Air Quality Management District staff members as the consensus of a task force appointed by the AQMD board two years ago to study hydrogen fluoride use.

However, the recommendation was made by the agency staff based on interviews with some task force members. The full task force did not vote on the recommendation or even debate it, said Carol Coy, an AQMD enforcement official and co-chair of the task force.

The staff “assumed that members of the task force would select” the option of improving safety equipment rather than banning hydrogen fluoride’s use in bulk, wrote Edward Camarena, AQMD deputy executive officer for operations, in a letter accompanying the report.

Camarena urged task force members to inform the AQMD if staff members “have been presumptuous.”

Coy said the draft will be circulated to task force members who could ask to debate the recommendation at a meeting. Final comments are due by Jan. 19, and the final report will be submitted to the AQMD board March 2.

The cost of the safety improvements, she said, is not precisely known, but they would be much less expensive than banning hydrogen fluoride or its liquid form, hydrofluoric acid.

Refineries could substitute sulfuric acid, which is less dangerous because it does not vaporize at room temperature, but there is no alternative to hydrogen fluoride to make certain types of refrigerants.

The 75-page draft report identifies five major hydrogen fluoride users in Los Angeles County: the Mobil Oil refinery in Torrance, the Allied-Signal plant in El Segundo, the Ultramar refinery in Wilmington and the Golden-West and Powerine refineries in Santa Fe Springs. Hydrogen fluoride is used by refineries to make high-octane gasoline. Allied-Signal uses it in the manufacture of refrigerants.

Officials of firms that use the chemical applauded the draft report, while questions were raised by officials in Torrance, where safety at the Mobil refinery has become a major issue.

The task force looked at the consequences and likelihood of a major release of hydrogen fluoride, emergency response plans, transportation of the chemical, options for converting to other chemicals and legislative issues in regulating it.

But the task force did not study the potential for human error in causing industrial accidents, which safety experts say is a leading factor in most major incidents.

“People could be wonderful for a period of time and then do something stupid,” said David Schwien, an AQMD senior engineering manager working on the hydrofluoric acid task force.

“We worry about that here constantly. . . . It is basic to everything we do, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

To improve safety, the report suggests that facilities using the chemical have:

* Concrete basins below equipment using hydrogen fluoride.

* Automated alarm systems designed to signal escape of the chemical.

* Remote-controlled water spray systems, which can inhibit the spread of hydrogen fluoride fumes.

* Underground holding tanks, where acid would be siphoned rapidly in an emergency.

None of the plants now have leak-detection alarms or the underground holding tanks. Mobil and Ultramar have sophisticated water sprays and are improving them. The other three have some water spray capability.

Mobil spokesman Barry Engelberg said Mobil has planned or already implemented most of the safety measures suggested in the report, but it is clear that a substantial amount of work remains.

For instance, Engelberg acknowledged that the company is at least a year from completing an upgrade of its water spray equipment and the installation of a fully automated system to shunt hydrogen fluoride underground. And the company has no plans yet to install concrete basins to contain any spills, he said.

Bud Bell, general manager at Ultramar, said the recommended equipment is either in place or being planned.

Few details were available from Allied-Signal.

Mobil officials have said it would cost them about $100 million to convert their refinery to sulfuric acid. The refinery process that uses hydrogen fluoride could be accomplished with about 150 times as much sulfuric acid. Mobil officials have said that would present a significant transportation hazard.

The AQMD report presents three options regarding hydrogen fluoride: make no change in regulations, toughen safety requirements and allow its use, or ban the chemical in bulk. The report chose the middle course.

Bell said he saw the report as an expression of confidence in the use of hydrogen fluoride by refineries and other industrial plants. “It has been looked at very constructively by a respected agency, and basically, it has been given a clean bill of health,” Bell said. “I feel pretty good.”

Engelberg said, “We’re encouraged by it.”

But Torrance City Councilman Dan Walker, who sponsored an initiative that effectively would eliminate use of the chemical at Mobil, objected.

Calling the report a product of people who are out of touch with Torrance’s concerns, he said: “They don’t live here. They aren’t faced with this hazard. It’s very simple for governmental bodies to take that middle line. My position is that when it comes to health and safety, there should be no compromise.”

Fire Chief Scott Adams said he was encouraged to learn from the report that Mobil and Ultramar have water spray capacity that could contend with some leaks. However, he said the “chances of a catastrophic release . . . while very remote, are nevertheless possible. What we have to grapple with is the question of what risk is society willing to assume.”

Mobil typically stores 29,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid at its refinery.

The AQMD’s Coy said that if the task force report is presented to the agency’s board in March without major changes, there is no assurance that the board will approve the recommendation.