Torrance refinery
LOS ANGELES — A group that seeks to force Los Angeles-area refineries to change their refining processes, in the name of public safety, is suing the cities of Torrance and Los Angeles to release public safety reports about potential catastrophic hazards at the Los Angeles region’s two oil refineries.
The Torrance Refinery Action Alliance (TRAA) filed separate lawsuits against the two cities on June 4 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, arguing the unredacted versions of the Hierarchy of Hazard Control Analysis (HCA) reports relating to the Torrance Refinery and Valero Wilmington Refinery should be disclosed under the California Public Records Act.
The legal actions were filed in the wake of the evacuation of about 50,000 Orange County residents after a tank containing thousands of gallons of volatile methyl methacrylate at the GKN Aerospace facility was found to be at risk of exploding. Officials in the city of Garden Grove later said the hazard had been eliminated, allowing residents to return to their homes.
For more than 10 years, the TRAA has advocated for the elimination of modified hydrofluoric acid (MHF) at the Torrance and Valero refineries. MHF is used in the refining process to produce high-octane, cleaner-burning gasoline, but the TRAA contends safer chemicals are available to produce such fuels.
“A release of MHF could create a lethal, ground-hugging toxic cloud threatening hundreds of thousands of residents,” the lawsuit against Los Angeles states.
The Torrance lawsuit accuses the city of withholding the HCA report for 21 months after the advocacy group’s first public records request. A heavily redacted report was eventually released, but the TRAA said the released material did not comply with California law and made disputed claims about why large portions of the report were withheld.
“... Those claims of exemption are legally unsupportable, the redacted information is not a legitimate trade secret and the overwhelming public interest in disclosure of this information vastly outweighs any conceivable interest in continued secrecy,” the Torrance lawsuit states.
The complaint characterizes MHF as one of the most dangerous industrial chemicals in production. The two Los Angeles-area facilities are the only California refineries using the chemical, and safer alternatives, such as sulfuric acid, are available, according to the lawsuit.
Ian Patton, a TRAA spokesman, said the defendant cities have yet to respond to the lawsuits.
“A trial-setting conference has been scheduled for September,” Patton told the Southern California Record.
The TRAA decided to initiate the legal actions after multiple years of delays by the Torrance and Los Angeles fire departments – the agencies responsible for safety oversight at the two refineries – in producing the requested public records, according to a TRAA press release.
“These tactics have served to shield the two subject refineries, and the powerful corporations which own them, from having to disclose compliance with basic safety reporting regulations,” TRAA said.
The Torrance Refinery is owned by PBF Energy, which did not respond to a request for comment about TRAA’s allegations. The Torrance City Attorney’s Office reported that it has yet to be served with the lawsuit and so would be unable to comment about it.
The Torrance lawsuit states that in February 2015, an explosion at the Torrance Refinery caused a 40-ton piece of debris to land just five feet from tanks holding about 50,000 pounds of MHF.
“Had those tanks ruptured, the resulting release could have caused mass casualties throughout the South Bay area,” the lawsuit states. “Independent scientific analysis shows that MHF, when released, forms a ground-hugging toxic cloud capable of traveling at lethal concentrations up to two miles.”
