AQMD Urges Ban on Refinery Usage of Toxic Chemical : Safety: Staff members surprise and please Torrance city officials by suggesting a ban on hydrogen fluoride.

South Coast Air Quality Management District staff members disclosed Thursday that they will propose a ban on refinery use of the highly toxic chemical hydrogen fluoride.

The staff decision was contained in a brief memo to members of a hydrogen fluoride task force, which was created to study the dangers that use of the chemical poses to the public.

The proposal for a ban brought cheers from Torrance city officials, who had been outraged by a draft report done for the task force. It had recommended additional safety measures instead of a ban.

Startled refinery officials questioned why district staff would come to a conclusion so different from the draft conclusions of the district’s own task force, which is composed of 45 government, industry and public safety officials.

Citing the dangers of earthquakes, sabotage and human error, the memo by deputy executive officer Edward Camarena said “the life-threatening consequences” of a hydrogen fluoride spill led the staff to conclude that it would be “prudent public policy to phase out the use of this acutely hazardous material where viable” and less dangerous chemicals are available.

“Yeahhhh!” said Torrance City Councilman Dan Walker, who is sponsoring a March ballot initiative that would force the Mobil Oil refinery in Torrance to stop using hydrogen fluoride. “That’s just great.”

Hydrogen fluoride, known in its liquid state as hydrofluoric acid, is used at four Los Angeles area refineries as a catalyst in the production of unleaded gasoline. The chemical also is used at Allied-Signal Corp. in El Segundo to manufacture refrigerants.

If spilled, the chemical creates a deadly gas cloud.

Refineries could use sulfuric acid instead, but they would have to spend millions of dollars and several years building new equipment to make the conversion. No other chemical could be substituted at Allied-Signal, said officials of both the company and the air quality district.

The district staff’s recommendation and the task force report, which will be finalized in coming weeks, will be considered by the full AQMD board at a March 2 meeting. If the AQMD decides to limit hydrogen fluoride use, state legislation implementing the ban would then have to be approved in Sacramento.

Camarena said the staff’s decision was based largely on a computerized study--not yet released to the public--of how spills of hydrogen fluoride and its alternative, sulfuric acid, would affect an urbanized area. Release of the study is expected early next week, he said.

“The reality is that there cannot be absolute guarantees against certain events--earthquake, human error, things of that nature--and one needs to then ask, are there risks that we can avoid by seeking viable alternatives?” Camarena said.

Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert said the computer study will provide valuable scientific support for her city’s pending lawsuit against Mobil, which seeks additional power to regulate the refinery by having it declared a public nuisance.

“We have been waiting for this. This is very good news,” she said.

Refinery officials said they had assumed that the district’s staff recommendation would parallel the task force’s draft report.

“It was kind of a surprise to me. I was not aware that they had undertaken any (computer) modeling,” said Mobil refinery general manager Wyman Robb, a non-voting industry member of the task force. Mobil’s own modeling studies showed little danger of a fatality, he said.

“We spent months and months and months tuning the fairly sophisticated models on hydrogen fluoride dispersion,” Robb said. “I don’t know how long they’ve been working on this. . . . There’s more information that I need to see before I can make any comment about that conclusion.”

Mobil uses an average of 459 gallons of hydrofluoric acid each day. Robb estimated that it would cost more than $100 million and take three to four years to convert to sulfuric acid.

Equally surprised by the decision were officials at two Santa Fe Springs refineries--Powerine Oil Company, which uses 73 gallons per day, and Golden West Refinery, which uses 81 gallons.

Refinery manager Marshall A. (Bud) Bell of Ultramar Refinery in Wilmington, which needs a daily supply of 283 gallons, said that the initial cost of converting to sulfuric acid would be about $45 million. He said operating costs would also be higher.

“It would be devastating,” he said.

In a separate development Thursday, Ultramar, which has the region’s second largest alkylation unit using hydrofluoric acid, released a risk assessment report that estimates that their use of the chemical would cause one death every 100 years. The estimate is about the same as one that Mobil came up with in a similar risk assessment report.

Ultramar’s study, Bell said, proves that the firm’s use of hydrogen fluoride is safe.

At Allied-Signal, which leads usage in Los Angeles with 4,320 gallons consumed each day, officials were generally not concerned.

“It shouldn’t really impact us here because they’re talking about viable alternatives, and it’s already been established that we don’t have any,” acting plant manager John Haddad said.

Because Allied-Signal uses hydrogen fluoride to make refrigerants that are less dangerous to the ozone layer than other types of refrigerants, Camarena said air quality district staff members will have to balance that positive consideration with the toxic dangers.

“One needs to crank all the considerations into coming up with a recommendation,” he said. “Where there aren’t alternatives, then that pretty well answers that.”

RELATED STORY: B7