100 Evacuated After Truck Spills Load of Chemicals : Antelope Valley: The tanker overturns en route to a hazardous waste burning facility that protesters have opposed in fear of such accidents.

A truck loaded with 20,000 pounds of potentially explosive chemicals overturned on California 138 Monday as it headed toward a hazardous waste burning facility near Gorman, forcing the evacuation of a nearby school and a dozen houses.

The resulting chemical spill came seven weeks after the state Environmental Protection Agency eased the way toward issuance of new operating permits for the Los Robles waste incinerator--jointly operated by Encino-based National Cement Co. and the Systech Environmental Corp.--by rejecting demands for an environmental impact report on the plant.

Environmentalists who oppose the plant have stressed the possibility of such truck accidents in residential areas as well as health problems from air pollution since the plant began burning waste in 1982.

Authorities said the truck operated by Explosives Technologies International overturned at about 9 a.m. at 27011 Lancaster Road in the town of Neenach. About 100 people were evacuated from an area within a quarter-mile of the spill, including more than 60 children from Neenach Elementary School who were bused to a Quartz Hill school.

The three-axle tanker truck was carrying ammonium nitrate, blasting powder, diesel fuel and an oxidizing chemical in separate compartments, said Inspector Clark Pearson of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Officials said they evacuated residents because diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer, can produce an explosive combination if mixed.

“It’s not uncommon for various chemicals to be carried in one truck,” Pearson said, even if the materials would react with each other if combined. “That’s what the compartments are for.”

Although the tanker did not crack open, the chemicals mixed when several of the truck’s pipes broke.

County Fire Capt. Steve Valenzuela said an explosion was unlikely unless the chemicals ignited through impact or fire. No toxic clouds formed due to the accident, he said.

The truck rolled over coming out of an S-curve, said Sgt. Les Fritz of the California Highway Patrol. The curve was marked with a 30 m.p.h. speed limit sign, authorities said.

“Preliminary reports indicate the driver probably took the turn too fast and overturned,” Fritz said.

The truck driver, Clinton Davis, of Victorville was taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia for minor back injuries and was later released, fire officials said. No one else was hurt in the accident.

The county Fire Department’s hazardous materials team, a Sheriff’s Department bomb squad and two dozen firefighters remedied the leak by Monday afternoon. Pearson said residents would return to their houses after the workers righted the truck and removed the dangerous chemicals, a process which was expected to take well into Monday night.

“This is the kind of thing we’ve been protesting against. It’s insane,” said Jane Williams of Desert Citizens Against Pollution, one of several environmental groups that have been protesting the presence of the disposal plant and the associated truck traffic.

Williams, of Rosamond, said trucks headed for the plant daily pass less than a quarter mile from the elementary school and over the California Aqueduct.

The incinerator, the only commercial hazardous waste incinerator in California, burns wastes to fuel the kiln in its cement manufacturing process.

The Los Robles plant is situated on land leased from the Tejon Ranchcorp. Tejon’s parent company is 30% owned by the Times Mirror Co., which publishes The Times.