Mobil Unveils Plan to Battle Initiative Against Use of Acid : Election: Mobil expects to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat measure. Torrance officials express shock at the planned expenditures.

Mobil Oil Corp. plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in coming weeks to persuade Torrance residents to vote against a ballot measure aimed at banning the use of hydrofluoric acid at its Torrance refinery.

Ending weeks of speculation about their battle plans, Mobil officials this week filed organization papers for the “Mobil Oil Corp. Refinery Safety Committee--No on Measure ‘A’ ” campaign.

“The theme will be, ‘Vote for Safety, Not Politics,’ ” refinery general manager Wyman Robb said. “Our effort is to make sure that voters in Torrance understand that the people’s desire for safety is really not served by (the) initiative.”

The target of the Mobil campaign--a March 6 ballot measure sponsored by Torrance City Councilman Dan Walker--seeks to limit storage of hydrofluoric acid in Torrance to no more than 250 gallons. That would effectively force Mobil to abandon use of the chemical at its Torrance refinery.

Walker sponsored the initiative after a series of accidents at the refinery raised concerns about Mobil’s safety procedures. A November, 1987, explosion and fire involving hydrofluoric acid focused attention on the highly lethal chemical. Mobil officials say they have since tightened safety at the refinery and that the ballot measure is not necessary.

For months, Mobil officials have been conducting public opinion polls and staging refinery tours for their Torrance neighbors, but they denied their actions were aimed directly at defeating the initiative, designated as Measure A.

On Friday, Robb said Mobil will heat up its ballot measure campaign in about two weeks.

“We’re going to be conducting a fairly wide-ranging information program that will involve mailings, newspaper advertising, probably some cable television advertising (and) informal neighborhood gatherings,” Robb said.

“We’ll do everything we can think of to try to get some factual information in the hands of the people who make this decision.”

Robb said Mobil has not set a precise figure for what it will spend on the campaign. He said “it’s possible” the cost will go over $500,000 but would “not likely” reach $1 million.

Walker expressed disgust at the level of spending Mobil has planned. “They could just mail out a $50 bill to everybody in the city of Torrance who was going to vote and they would still lose,” Walker said, noting that Torrance elections rarely draw more than 10,000 of the city’s 70,000 registered voters to the polls.

“It is absolutely incredible that a company would spend that type of money on a campaign of distortion . . . rather than spending it in dealing with the safety problems at the refinery,” he said. “If it’s not criminal, it should be.”

“I’m speechless,” said Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert, who opposes Measure A because she believes it will interfere with a lawsuit the city has filed seeking even broader control over Mobil’s operations. “I can’t imagine what they’re going to spend their money on.”

State law does not require Mobil to file a campaign finance report until Feb. 22, 12 days before the March 6 election.

Last year, Walker spent about $65,000 of his personal campaign funds to have lawyers write the measure and to collect the signatures needed to place it on the ballot.

Since then, Walker says, he has spent nothing further while he waited to see what Mobil’s response would be.

Robb defended the planned campaign expenditures as “a relatively small percentage of what the city is likely to spend just to defend this initiative and implement it if it passes.”

“If the initiative passes, it’s very likely that Mobil would make the necessary court challenges,” Robb said.

Measure A “has become a political issue in the city,” he said. “Walker is using it as a means for some political grandstanding. It unfairly targets one company, one plant and one chemical substance in the name of safety.”

Robb warned that forcing Mobil to stop using two monthly truckloads of hydrofluoric acid would force the company to switch to more than 100 truckloads a month of sulfuric acid, another toxic chemical.

“We don’t believe that eliminating (the acid) is going to significantly improve the environment for the citizens of Torrance,” he said.