Firm Accused of Bringing Hazardous Waste to State

A South Gate chemical firm was charged with unlawfully bringing hazardous waste into California in what the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office called the first such criminal prosecution in the state.

The Stauffer Chemical Co. allegedly transported 10,000 gallons of phosphorus waste from Tennessee to the firm’s South Gate facility, where it has been stored in a railroad tanker car for two years.

If convicted on all 19 counts of unlawfully transporting, storing and trying to dispose of the waste, Stauffer could be fined up to $20 million and ordered to pay cleanup costs of $1.5 million. The charges were filed Tuesday.

Phosphorus waste is extremely dangerous because it can ignite if it comes into contact with oxygen and will generate heat of up to 6,000 degrees, said William Carter, the deputy district attorney handling the prosecution.

Such a fire would generate toxic smoke and fumes, and would be almost impossible to extinguish, Carter said.

One of the most notorious phosphorus waste fires occurred five years ago in Sparks, Nev., when a rail tanker caught fire. The only way to put out the blaze was to bury the car, Carter said.

At Stauffer’s plant in South Gate, employees first tried to eliminate the phosphorus waste by burning it. They failed because they could get only a small amount out of the tanker and some workers refused to help because of the danger involved, Carter said.

Years ago, Stauffer manufactured phosphorus at its South Gate facility but has since ceased, Carter said. The manufacturing portion of the plant was razed in the early 1980s and all that is left on the site now is a distribution and sales office.

Stauffer is owned by a French company, Rhone-Poulenc, whose American headquarters is in Connecticut. Company officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Arraignment on the charges is set for Sept. 5 in Los Angeles Municipal Court. Meanwhile, the tanker car has been sealed and is being monitored by the county health department until arrangements can be made to transport it to a licensed facility that will dispose of the waste, Carter said.

The tanker car is believed to be one of 20 that were filled in 1985 and 1986 at a Stauffer phosphorus plant in Florida. When that plant closed, the tankers were moved to another plant in Tennessee. In 1988, one of the tankers full of phosphorus waste was shipped to South Gate, Carter said.