Toxic Acid Rolls Through Heart of Torrance by Rail

Even if Torrance residents vote in March to ban bulk storage of hydrofluoric acid in their city, that will not stop an El Segundo company from moving nearly 22,000 gallons of it through the heart of Torrance on a railroad line several times a month.

Twice a week, railroad cars loaded with the highly toxic chemical leave an Allied-Signal manufacturing plant in Louisiana and cross the country to the South Bay, following an Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line through Torrance, Lawndale, portions of Redondo Beach and Hawthorne and into the Allied-Signal plant in El Segundo.

Frustrated Torrance City Councilman George Nakano on Tuesday asked city staff members to try to find a way to control what rolls through Torrance. However, initial indications from city staff members are that federal interstate commerce laws would prevent Torrance from having much control, he said.

“It’s not going to be an easy task. I know that,” Nakano said. Torrance “is not an isolated case in this.”

The council learned of Allied-Signal’s transportation practices in a brief memo last week from Torrance Fire Chief Scott Adams. He said he became curious about how the company receives its hydrofluoric acid after seeing statistics showing that it consumes 4,320 gallons of the chemical each day--more than nine times the consumption rate at Mobil Oil’s Torrance refinery.

Allied-Signal uses the chemical, known in its gaseous state as hydrogen fluoride, to manufacture refrigerants. Four Los Angeles-area refineries, including Mobil, use hydrofluoric acid as a catalyst in the manufacture of unleaded gasoline.

Mobil, which use 459 gallons a day, brings in its hydrofluoric acid in 4,000- to 5,000-gallon tanker trucks. Two other refineries, Ultramar in Wilmington and Powerine in Santa Fe Springs, also use tanker trucks for transport, whereas Goldenwest Refinery in Santa Fe Springs brings in its hydrofluoric acid by rail.

Ultramar uses 283 gallons a day of the chemical, Powerine uses 73 gallons and Goldenwest uses 81 gallons daily.

Alarmed by an explosion and fire involving the chemical at the Mobil Torrance refinery in 1987, City Councilman Dan Walker is pushing a local ballot measure that would ban bulk storage of hydrofluoric acid. The measure could force the refinery to spend 100 million dollars to switch to using sulfuric acid, Mobil officials say.

Air Quality Management District staff members this month said they would recommend banning use of hydrogen fluoride by refineries, but would not suggest a ban for Allied-Signal because there is no alternate chemical the company could use in its manufacturing process.

“We’ve been using hydrogen fluoride since 1965,” said Louis Ervin, manager of Allied-Signal’s El Segundo plant. “We’ve developed a number of safeguards both here at the facility and also in how we transport the chemical. We feel it can be handled safely.”

Walker said the transportation issue is “totally separate” from his initiative’s storage ban.

The large quantities being moved through the city “is of obvious concern, but there is a major difference between that occurrence twice a week and a refinery with its obvious problems sitting in the middle of the city 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”

City Manager LeRoy Jackson said he would research what could be done to control chemical transportation and report back to the City Council.