Acid Spill Forces Plant Evacuation

About 375 workers were evacuated from a Los Alamitos aerospace plant Tuesday after an acid spill sent an orange cloud billowing into the sky.

Fifteen workers were taken to Los Alamitos Medical Center after complaints of skin irritation, throat tightness and headaches, said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Scott Brown, but none of the injuries was serious and “many of those were reluctant to receive any type of treatment.”

The spill occurred about 8:45 a.m. behind Arrowhead Products in the 4400 block of Katella Avenue.

Police blocked the street until 12:30 p.m.

A tanker truck was draining a solution of about one-third nitric and hydrofluoric acids and two-thirds water from a 1,000-gallon tank, where Arrowhead cleans the aircraft parts it manufactures.

But about 8:45 a.m., a valve on the truck failed, spilling the solution onto the pavement and creating the cloud, officials said.

“I saw it and thought, ‘Geez, that looks really bad,’ ” said employee Brian Peebles, 25, of the plume.

“It was big. It filled up the whole back parking lot.”

Brown said the greatest danger would have been to workers in an enclosed area with the gas, which ended up dissipating quickly and harmlessly.

Employees said their bosses notified them quickly and evacuated everyone from the plant.

“The back end of the building was all gassed up, with the fumes and the smoke,” said Bob Mesa, a production scheduler from Corona.

Peebles braved the cloud to get his 1986 Nissan pickup and move it from the back parking lot to the opposite side of the building.

“I kind of held my breath and ran through” the haze, he said.

Investigators from the Fire Authority, Arrowhead and SOS Ecology Management Inc., the company that owns the tanker truck, will examine the site to determine why the spill occurred.

Fire Authority spokesman Garry Layman said the acid may have reacted with traces of another chemical on the truck’s valve, eating away at a seal.

This was the first emergency in Arrowhead’s 38-year history, said Richard Kichline, vice president of human resources.

The company’s own hazardous materials team responded and sprinkled soda ash on the spill, nullifying its acidity.

Firefighters and hazardous materials teams from the county and Santa Ana completed the neutralization.

Plant employees returned to work by 3 p.m., fire officials said.

“Whenever we deal with a [hazardous materials] incident, we have a certain protocol we follow, simply as a precaution,” Brown said.

“We can’t just come in and wash it down the gutter, no matter the scale of severity.”