Workshop Set on Plan to Ban Hydrofluoric Acid
Air quality officials will hold a public workshop Aug. 10 in El Monte on a proposed regulation to ban highly toxic hydrofluoric acid at four oil refineries and a refrigerant manufacturing plant.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which says the regulation is needed to guard against a potential disaster, has proposed phasing out the volatile chemical at Allied Signal’s refrigerant manufacturing plant in El Segundo by 1993 and at the oil refineries by 1995. Because no substitute is known in the manufacture of refrigerants, the ban would force Allied Signal to relocate its plant to a less populated area.
The ban would require the oil refineries--Mobil in Torrance, Ultramar in Wilmington and Golden West and Powerine in Santa Fe Springs--to make an expensive conversion to less volatile sulfuric acid.
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