Torrance Delays Vote on Refinery’s Use of HF Acid : Industry: Residents, council members question Mobil’s ability to use modified hydrofluoric acid safely.

Residents asked about earthquakes and alarm systems. A Mobil Oil Corp. safety official talked about timetables. Some city councilmen bristled over unanswered questions.

In the end, the Torrance City Council on Tuesday postponed a vote until next week on one of the most controversial issues to face the city’s government in years: whether Mobil can safely use a modified form of hydrofluoric acid at its 750-acre refinery in Torrance.

The city must decide by Feb. 16 whether to accept a safety adviser’s recommendation that Mobil be allowed to use the newly reformulated acid.

The decision has rekindled a decades-old debate about refinery safety, especially in the wake of an October explosion at Mobil that injured 28 workers.

The council is now expected to make a decision at its meeting Tuesday, after further discussion among attorneys and city staff.

This week’s meeting was punctuated by emotional exchanges.

Councilmen Dan Walker and George Nakano raised questions about the reliability of information that Mobil has provided the city. Nakano said he had received conflicting reports about the amount of the acid, called HF, that is used at the refinery. Mobil uses the acid to boost the octane of unleaded gasoline.

“I really question the honesty of the answers that we’re getting,” Nakano said.

“So much of what we’re doing here seems to be based on trust,” Walker added.

Such comments drew a swift response Wednesday from Mobil regional manager Joel Maness, who oversees the refinery.

“I was extremely disappointed regarding some of the comments that were made regarding our honesty and integrity,” Maness said. “I don’t lie--I’m sorry, I just don’t lie.”

Other council members voiced disappointment that they had not received reports they had requested outlining Mobil’s progress in implementing the recommendations of a court-supervised safety adviser. Maness said Wednesday he believed that the information had been provided to the city.

The council is grappling with a key requirement of a city-Mobil pact that resolved the city’s 1989 public-nuisance lawsuit against Mobil. A major issue: Mobil’s use of HF, which tests have shown can create a potentially lethal cloud.

HF is used at 57 U.S. refineries; 45 use sulfuric acid. Torrance residents grew concerned about HF after a series of Mobil accidents in the 1980s.

Mobil scientists report that a new additive and other techniques will reduce HF’s risk by 80%, and that the refinery hopes to institute modified HF by as early as the beginning of 1997, depending on the city’s approval and the permitting process.

The modified HF has won the approval of both a court-supervised safety adviser and City Fire Chief R. Scott Adams, who points to risk assessment data suggesting that the results of a modified HF spill would affect fewer people and prove less likely than sulfuric acid.

In a report to the council, Adams cites data from Mobil comparing similar tank leaks, one involving modified HF and the other sulfuric acid. The modified HF leak could pose a level of “significant concern” to 33.7 people in the neighborhood, and might occur once in 285,000 years, the report said. By contrast, the sulfuric leak could potentially expose 449 people and might occur once in 8,064 years, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Mayor Dee Hardison told Mobil she has received complaints about fumes. And a representative of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. spoke to the council about fumes last Friday at Toyota, which is east of Mobil.

About 50 people were evacuated from the Toyota technical center Friday afternoon after some employees complained of headaches and burning eyes.

The problems occurred after a Thursday gasoline spill of about 1,000 gallons at the Mobil tank farm. The South Coast Air Quality Management District was still investigating Wednesday morning.

Maness said he did not know if Mobil was the source of the Toyota fumes, but he added, “If we did cause that problem, I personally apologize.”