New petrochemical plants intended to improve city environments by producing “lead-free” petrol have created another, more deadly, environmental hazard. Accidents at the plants could lead to lethal clouds of hydrofluoric acid (HF), putting “tens of thousands at peril”, according to the Washington-based Environmental Policy Institute. The new process for making unleaded petrol involves using HF […]
Torrance City Council members expressed surprise Tuesday that an $88,000 study on safety of the Mobil Oil refinery will not answer their key question: What is the risk of the plant continuing to use hydrofluoric acid — an acutely toxic chemical — in the refining process. “That was the most important aspect of the whole […]
Use of sulfuric acid instead of hydrofluoric acid at the Mobil Oil Corp. refinery in Torrance could pose less danger to area residents in the event of an accident, according to a preliminary report prepared by the Torrance city staff. But it also would mean a substantial increase in truck traffic and hazardous-waste disposal problems, […]
Citing a November explosion at the Mobil Oil Corp. refinery in Torrance, South Coast Air Quality Management District officials have warned that the possibility exists for a “significant release” of hydrogen fluoride gas at facilities that use the chemical. An AQMD staff report obtained Monday calls for creation of a “high-level, multiagency” task force that […]
TEXAS CITY, Tex. – After 4,000 people were evacuated as a result of a leak of hydrofluoric acid from a refinery, questions are still being asked about potential hazards here and in other cities where the same chemical is used. Those questions center both on the long-term effects on those exposed to the Oct. 30 […]
Fifty-eight U.S. oil refineries, including three in the Los Angeles area, are using a potentially lethal chemical that could result in a Bhopal-like disaster threatening as many as 12 million people across the country, a Washington-based environmental group has warned. Fred Millar of the Environmental Policy Institute issued the warning three years after the Bhopal […]
Hydrogen fluoride could be America’s Bhopal gas, according to an environmental group and an Energy Department physicist studying the behavior of hazardous chemicals when they are spilled. The pair on Thursday likened the threat posed by the chemical to that of methyl isocyanate, which leaked from Union Carbide’s Bhopal, India, plant in December 1984 and […]
TEXAS CITY, Tex., Oct. 31 – Sixty-six people were seriously injured and 3,000 residents fled their homes Friday after a leaking tank at an oil refinery sent up a cloud of toxic acid vapor. Workers today pumped the leaking hydrofluoric acid through a two-inch hose into two connecting tank cars at the Marathon Petroleum Company […]
TEXAS CITY, Tex. – A crane dropped its load onto a pipe at an oil refinery Friday, unleashing a hydrofluoric acid cloud that forced the evacuation of at least 2,000 people and sent more than 100 others to hospitals, officials said. Workers at Marathon Oil Co. sprayed water into the vapor cloud Friday night in […]
