Tests Urged Before Firm Is Awarded Final OK : Hazardous materials: Marquardt Co., operating for years under a temporary permit, makes chemical bomb parts and rocket engines.

Environmental activists and local residents urged state health officials Wednesday to conduct health risk and other studies before granting a permanent operating permit to a Van Nuys defense and aerospace firm that makes chemical bomb parts, rocket engines and other products.

Marquardt Co. has applied to the state Department of Health Services for a permit that would allow it to continue using hazardous materials such as explosive rocket fuel and toxic solvents at its plant at 16555 Saticoy St.

Health officials are reviewing manufacturing processes, hazardous-waste handling procedures and emergency response plans at Marquardt, which has operated under a temporary permit since 1981. Wednesday’s meeting was called to solicit public comment on the firm’s application for a permanent permit, which state officials won’t decide on for another year.

Marquardt uses a variety of toxic and flammable chemicals to produce metal parts used in steering rockets for the space shuttle and jet engines for the National Aerospace Plane project, whose purpose is to develop an experimental commercial jet designed to fly 10 times faster and three times higher than existing aircraft.

The firm also makes parts for binary chemical bombs and cluster bombs, which scatter up to 250 smaller bombs when dropped. Human rights and peace activists have condemned cluster bombs as particularly inhumane.

The company became embroiled in controversy two years ago after it won a state grant to test a process for incinerating toxic materials at its plant. Although engineers said no harmful materials would be released into the air, intense community opposition forced the firm to cancel the project.

Penny Newmark, a spokeswoman for the Marquardt Coalition, a group of homeowners and environmentalists, urged state officials to conduct a health risk assessment and commission an independent environmental impact review before granting the company a permanent operating permit.

A health risk assessment would attempt to quantify the risks to nearby residents of an accidental release of hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere.

State officials said that health risk assessments and environmental impact reviews are conducted for about 25% to 30% of the hazardous waste facilities whose permits they review. But they added that it is too early in the review process to say if such studies will be required for Marquardt.

Newmark also said the homeowners group recently received an anonymous letter from the wife of a Marquardt worker claiming the firm failed to report “explosions and fires and chemical leaks” to city fire officials.

She said the letter writer also claimed Marquardt was building and loading chemical weapons at the plant.

Laura Zinkan, another spokeswoman for the Marquardt Coalition, said in an interview before the meeting that the firm shouldn’t be allowed to store rocket fuel and other toxic and flammable materials in a populated area such as Van Nuys.

“Don’t do this in the middle of suburbia,” she said. “Do this in some place that’s safer or don’t do it at all.”

Marquardt spokesman Joe Pospichal said the firm stores and uses only about one gallon of rocket fuel a week for its engine tests. He said the material poses very little threat to local residents.

Pospichal denied that there have been explosions, fires or chemical leaks at the plant.

“We have a very close relationship with the Fire Department, and we value the safety of our employees,” he said.

Pospichal said Marquardt manufactures metal parts for a binary chemical bomb known as “Big Eye” under a contract with the Navy. But he said the firm does not make or load any chemicals in Van Nuys.

“It’s so easy to make accusations,” he said. “If they really were sincere, it wouldn’t have been an anonymous letter.”

Pospichal also said that the United States and Soviet Union reached agreement in June to slash their stockpiles of chemical weapons. He declined, however, to say when his firm’s contract to produce Big Eye components runs out or when it will cease producing them.