Torrance residents call for the ban of 'flesh-eating' chemical used at refinery

Residents and advocates gathered Saturday to request the prohibition of a chemic that’s utilized astatine a Torrance lipid refinery and that they accidental has the imaginable to origin a wide casualty disaster.

Hydrofluoric acerb is utilized successful astir 40 gasoline refineries crossed the United States, according to the National Resources Defense Council. The defence assembly states that “exposing arsenic small arsenic 1% of a person’s tegument to HF (about the size of one’s hand) tin pb to death. When inhaled, HF tin fatally harm lungs, disrupt bosom rhythms, and origin different superior wellness effects.”

The Torrance Refinery uses modified hydrofluoric acid, oregon MHF, which the refinery considers to beryllium a safer alternate to HF, though the assertion is disputed by advocates. Steve Goldsmith, president of the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance, which hosted the Saturday event, said that if MHF were to beryllium been released into the air, it would make irreversible wellness effects wrong 6.2 miles of the refinery, trickling into different parts of Los Angeles County.

And successful 2015, helium said, this astir happened.

On Feb. 18, 2015, determination was an detonation astatine the refinery, past operated by ExxonMobil, caused by the rupture of an eroded valve. The incident, which released flammable hydrocarbons, injured 4 workers and forced 14 schools into lockdown.

The Saturday event, held astatine North High School’s Performing Arts Center successful Torrance, marked the 11th day of the explosion.

Goldsmith described the chemic arsenic “murderous.”

Audience members enactment successful a “peace clap” astatine North Torrance High arsenic they perceive to speakers against the usage of hydrofluoric acerb successful the Los Angeles portion and crossed the country.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“Torrance Refinery had an tremendous explosion, and a portion of instrumentality the size of a autobus came wrong 5 feet of the hydrofluoric acid, causing a adjacent miss,” Goldsmith said. “We’ve been moving to get escaped of it.”

Residents similar Christopher Truman accidental replacing MHF with an alternate enactment is the slightest that tin beryllium done. His parents unrecorded adjacent the refinery.

“I’m calved and raised successful the South Bay, and my household lives in, effectively, what would beryllium the blast radius if different mishap happened,” Truman said. “So conscionable successful that aspect, I’m precise disquieted astir it.”

MHF is besides utilized to cleanable semiconductor surfaces and nutrient pesticides and herbicides successful the cultivation and pharmaceutical industries, according to the Torrance Refinery.

County Supervisor Janice Hahn said residents should not presume “they volition beryllium lucky” if different refinery mishap were to occur.

“Only 2 refineries successful California usage MHF, Torrance Refinery and the Valero Refinery successful Wilmington,” Hahn said. “MHF is simply excessively unsafe to use. It is simply a flesh-eating, low-crawling, toxic vapor cloud. Our communities volition not beryllium harmless until this chemic is gone.”

Goldsmith said a Chevron refinery successful Salt Lake City recovered an ionic-liquid alkylation process arsenic an alternate to MHF. He added that the 2025 Chevron refinery detonation successful El Segundo “would person been antithetic if they had been utilizing MHF.”

“They utilized different chemic that did not endanger the community,” Goldsmith said. “And that’s the happening astir refineries, they person explosions. But that’s wherefore you can’t person [MHF] astir things that tin stroke up.”

U.S. Representative

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) appears connected a video connection explaining her legislation, which she says volition person a affirmative interaction for communities successful the Los Angeles region.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, (D-Los Angeles), who represents the metropolis of Torrance, greeted attendees successful a prerecorded message, successful which she reintroduced her bill, the “Preventing Mass Casualties from Release of Hydrofluoric Acid astatine Refineries Act,” which targets plants utilizing MHF.

“I primitively introduced this measure successful December of 2024,” Waters said successful the video. “I faced sizeable opposition, particularly from the United Steel Workers Union, [who were] acrophobic that if refineries converted to safer technologies, immoderate of the refineries mightiness close, leaving workers without jobs. They agreed with maine that hydrofluoric acerb is dangerous. But they inactive would not enactment my bill. So I decided to spell up and reintroduce this bill, [without] national support.”

The measure would springiness refineries 5 years to find an alternate to the unsafe chemical. Violators whitethorn beryllium taxable to fines up to $37,000 per infraction.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn speaks retired against the usage of hydrofluoric acid.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Some residents stressed the request for transparency from section officials.

Ian Patton, a Long Beach resident, said astir parts of the probe into the 2015 detonation were withheld.

“Why can’t they not marque this study public? The [Torrance Refinery Action Alliance] has been asking for it for years,” Patton said. “The adjacent measurement was to look astatine litigation nether the California Public Records Act. It’s not thing that we privation to do, but the nationalist deserves to cognize whether these plants are safe.”