Tucker Plans Bill to Curb Bulk Hydrogen Fluoride Use

Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) plans to introduce legislation that would impose a statewide ban on the bulk use of hydrogen fluoride in populated areas.

The proposal, which is being put into bill form by the legislative counsel, would require plants using hydrogen fluoride to switch to safer substitutes or to relocate--with state help--to sites where there are no dwellings within 15 miles.

“We don’t want a South Bay Bhopal,” Tucker said, referring to a release of isocyanate gas that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal, India, in December, 1984. “This is an issue that demands attention.”

Tucker’s proposal is intended to target the five large-scale users of hydrogen fluoride in Los Angeles County.

Four are refineries that use the chemical in the manufacture of unleaded gasoline: Mobil’s Torrance facility, Ultramar’s Wilmington plant, and the Powerine and Golden West refineries in Santa Fe Springs.

The fifth is the Allied Signal plant in El Segundo, which uses hydrogen fluoride to make refrigerants.

Allied Signal would be hit hardest by the measure, since there is no substitute for hydrogen fluoride in its manufacturing process. Refineries can use sulfuric acid instead, although converting to that chemical is costly--a $100-million expense, according to Mobil.

Officials from Mobil and Allied Signal said Friday that they would not comment on Tucker’s proposal until it is filed in bill form.

“All I can tell you is that hydrogen fluoride is an essential ingredient to our process,” said Louis Ervin, manager of Allied Signal’s El Segundo plant. “If we don’t have it, we have to shut this facility down.”

Pointing to the special equipment available to handle and store hydrogen fluoride and to contain it in the event of a spill, Ervin added: “We feel hydrogen fluoride can be handled safely.”

That view is shared by oil industry officials.

However, Tucker says his proposal is necessary. He points to the inherent dangers of hydrogen fluoride, which turns to a gas at room temperature and is capable of forming a lethal, low-floating cloud.

Oil industry-sponsored tests have shown that an uncontrolled, two-minute release of 500 gallons of hydrogen fluoride per minute could prove deadly up to five miles downwind.

“I’m not trying to put anyone out of business,” Tucker said. “We’re just looking to be responsive to the safety concerns of our community.”

Tucker’s proposal will probably be filed late this week, a member of his legislative staff in Sacramento said Friday.

Some aspects of the measure are unclear, however. For instance, Tucker could not say exactly how the provision for state-assisted plant relocations would work.

Another unanswered question is how much political support the proposal will generate. The South Coast Air Quality Mangement District is expected to begin considering a ban on bulk hydrogen fluoride use in April or May, and lawmakers may want to defer to that agency.

But the chairwoman of the Assembly’s Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee, which would be assigned to consider a proposed hydrogen fluoride ban, said her panel would “absolutely” take up Tucker’s proposal.

“I can’t comment on the bill until we’ve seen it, but we would certainly hear it,” the chairwoman, Sally Tanner (D-Baldwin Park), said.

In El Segundo, City Council members interviewed about Tucker’s proposal expressed an array of opinions.

Noting that a ban could close down the Allied Signal plant, City Councilman Alan West said he feared that an across-the-board ban could amount to “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

Fellow Councilman James Clutter said that, despite such arguments, he would support Tucker’s proposal.