Can Voters Head Off Refinery Calamities? : Torrance: Safety is a complex problem at America’s petrochemical plants. There are better ways than elections to correct the wrongs--but only if industry is responsive.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Good advice, sometimes, but an over-reliance on it has lately been leading American industry down the garden path of disaster.

Exhibit A is right in our own back yard. On Tuesday, Torrance residents will vote on a ballot measure that could force the Mobil Oil Co. to spend up to $100 million to restructure its refinery operations and eliminate the use of hydrofluoric acid, a highly toxic chemical that is used to boost the octane level of gasoline. The vote is a response to several mishaps at the refinery in the last few years, including one on Nov. 24, 1987, when a buildup of hydrofluoric acid resulted in a major explosion, sending a fireball 1,500 feet into the air, shaking houses within a 6-mile radius and injuring scores of people inside and outside the plant. The cavalier disposition of the refinery management toward the accidents and the apparent inaction regarding safety improvements, of course, has aggravated the situation and fueled the public’s anger.

But hydrofluoric acid is not the most serious problem at the refinery, nor does the Torrance facility have an exceptionally bad safety record on the national scale. In the last two years there have been numerous accidents, fires and explosions at several oil and chemical plants in California, Louisiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. The climax of this vicious cycle, so far, has been what is called America’s biggest postwar industrial accident--the explosion last October at the Phillips Petroleum’s plastic plant at Pasadena, Tex. That explosion, containing the force of 10 tons of TNT, killed 23 and left more than 100 workers injured. According to insurance-industry sources, the accident produced perhaps the largest single U.S. business insurance loss in history: about $1.5 billion.

The seriousness of these industrial calamities requires thorough investigation and dissemination of the lessons learned--not only for the purpose of accident prevention but also for the protection of all our citizens. What makes this so urgent is the eerie recurrence of one of the most frequently cited causes of accidents at oil and chemical plants--operator error. According to an investigative report carried by the Los Angeles Times in early February, the cause of the 1987 blast at the Torrance refinery was attributed to “human error.” In a 1989 Environmental Protection Agency study of accidental chemical releases in the United States, operator error was listed as a primary or contributing cause in 31% of cases. Among all causes, this was second only to equipment failure, which was responsible for 56% of the accidents. However, not always mentioned is that a good majority of these operator “errors” were in fact design-induced.

It is now known that both the performance and the inherent accident potential of complex, large-scale technological systems are functions of the way their parts--engineered and human--fit together and interact. On many occasions, the error and the resultant system failure is the result of such factors as bad work-station and control-room design; complicated operational procedures; ineffective (or unfocused) training; non-attentive supervisory systems; rigid task and organizational structures; non-responsive feedback mechanisms and delayed feedback, and sudden environmental disturbances, such as earthquakes.

Due to the large scale and complexity of petrochemical plants, their safety itself is a complex and multifaceted problem that requires a scientific, systematic and multidisciplinary approach. Conventional safety practices are no longer capable of offering effective prognosis. These practices, which are primarily based on decoration of plants with antiquated safety signs and posters, fruitless disciplinary actions and irrelevant safety drills, resemble a tranquilizer that would at best suppress the symptoms of the real causes.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” needs to be replaced by the concept of “if it ain’t broke yet, it may, so let’s fix it now.” Unfortunately, Tuesday’s vote in Torrance--whatever the result--will not fix anything. An acceptable solution can only come from the recognition by the Mobil refinery that it must operate with a diligent conscience for environmental and social concerns, and a realization by Torrance residents that Mobil’s presence benefits the community. The problem cannot be solved by legislation or litigation. It can be solved by a partnership between Mobil and its Torrance neighbors based on a candid exchange of views and information between the partners and on the modern scientific approach to safe refinery operations.