Few Show Up to Hear Unocal Reassure Plant Neighbors : Meeting: Company holds hearing, says tests reveal no risk posed by Huntington Beach facility, but is told that most residents stayed home, awaiting independent survey.

People who live near a controversial oil-processing plant denounced a public hearing held Thursday night by Unocal to try to reassure them that no health risk came from that facility.

The sparsely attended meeting was mostly boycotted by residents, according to Jim Bridges, a property owner who said he was speaking for scores of people who had called him.

Officials of Unocal and the state Air Quality Management District attended the meeting, which was held at the Meadowlark Country Club. They told the audience that tests so far have found nothing that causes a health risk from the plant at 4541 Heil Ave.

But Bridges said most residents are only interested in an independent health survey that has not yet been completed. He told the meeting that most residents had therefore boycotted the session pending release of the independent test results. Bridges said those results are expected in about a month. Only about 40 people attended the briefing, and Bridges estimated that only 15 of those live near the oil plant.

The meeting occasionally became raucous as a handful of residents criticized the medical and scientific reports that were presented.

“You never answer our questions,” charged one woman, who then walked out.

Unocal officials said they will hold another public meeting when the independent health test awaited by area residents has been completed.

Built about 30 years ago, the oil-processing plant removes water from petroleum newly pumped from offshore wells. The crude oil is then pumped to refineries outside Orange County for further processing.

Unocal named the plant “Fort Apache” because it was so isolated when it was first built. Now, however, the facility is surrounded by homes and apartments.

Residents of apartments next to Fort Apache charged last year that their health was impaired by breathing “toxic fumes” from the plant.

Residents also complained that government agencies, including the Huntington Beach Fire Department and the South Coast Air Quality Management District, have been slipshod in monitoring Fort Apache.

On Tuesday, a civil lawsuit seeking an unspecified amount of damages was filed in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of 25 people who claim that their health was impaired by Fort Apache. Many of the people suing Unocal were in the audience Thursday night.