DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN? - (This letter was written by former Environmental Crimes Deputy DA, Anthony Patchett, to the City Attorney. It has been edited for brevity by Connie Rutter.) There appears to be a long history of submission to the facility operators by the City of Los Angeles in fear that a Condemnation Proceeding would cost the city too much money. That was the wrong approach. For over many years interdepartmental memos have discussed the potential for danger. Nothing seems to have been accomplished, but the usual stall and memory lapses by the members of our government.
A Los Angeles Times article by Larry Pryor in 1977 stated: “Two storage tanks containing a highly hazardous substance, liquefied petroleum gas, are operating near a densely populated area in San Pedro, although the facility was built without a risk analysis or comprehensive safety review.”
The tanks were built to earthquake design criteria below that of a proposed LNG Terminal for Long Beach Harbor. The site is zoned for heavy industrial use but is adjacent to residential zoning. Petrolane was able to build and operate its facility with remarkably little attention in 1973.
Because of a claim of ‘exemption’, the company had to obtain a minimal number of permits. One was from the regional Coastal Commission, which in October 1973 voted to approve revisions to the berth and construction of the pipeline.
However, the Coastal Commission was given additional powers to evaluate and control risk, in the state Coastal Act of 1976. By the time of a PUC investigation in 1977, required by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Coastal Commission staff had specific directives about risk analysis and management that should be performed by the Ports, especially when dealing with LPG or LNG. (The storage tanks were outside the coastal zone, so the Coastal Commission staff’s advice involved only the Port of LA Berth 120 changes to handle LPG.)
Actually the EIR, such as it was, dealt chiefly with the berth; the public notice of Petrolane’s hearing made no mention of LPG, but focused on the loading arms at the berth and the pipeline. The Coastal Commission staff, relying on the analysis of the Los Angeles Engineering Department, recommended approval of the permit. “We didn’t have any idea of what that facility was all about,” one staff member said.
An EIR prepared as part of the permit process for the approval of the Harbor Commission made no mention of the existence of the Palos Verdes fault, avoided discussing the hazardous nature of LPG, and did not allow for public review.
Another Los Angeles Times article by Bryce Nelson stated: “the GAO argues that a serious earthquake, flood or terrorist attack could cause a tank holding liquefied gas to rupture and that the gas that would then vaporize could explode.”
The report asserts that “the closest analogy to this may be the large World War II bombing raids. The total energy in the bombs dropped in the 1945 raid on Tokyo, which killed 83,000 people and destroyed more than 250,000 dwellings, was about 1% of the energy for one large liquefied gas storage tank,” the report says. The report makes several recommendations for national safety policy on LNG and other liquefied energy gases such as propane and butane.
• There should be no new large storage facilities built in urban areas and no expansion of present facilities.
• Any new large storage facilities built in remote areas should be built in ground with the highest level of fluid below ground level.
• Liquefied energy gas tanks in populated areas should be built and operated under the same standards as nuclear plants.
• Liquefied energy gases “should not be moved through urban areas if there is any other way to deliver the material.”
• “A much more equitable system is needed to assign liability and compensate victims” after a liquefied gas accident. Under the present law the report said, injured parties could not be fully compensated after a severe accident.
The GAO investigators concluded that no equipment could put out a very large liquefied gas fire, and that “liquefied energy gas and naphtha facilities have virtually no protection against saboteurs.”
There also appears to be a long history of minimizing the potential danger of an explosion. In the 2009 and 2012 Risk Management Plan, the “worst case analysis” says 57,000,000 pounds of butane would be released and the explosion radius would be ½ mile and affect 770 residents.
In actuality, according to the EPA Guidance to enforce 40 CFR Part 68, if 57,000,000 pounds of butane (roughly one of the refrigerated tanks) were released, the blast radius would be three miles and would affect an estimated population of 27,000 people and wipe out most of the Port of Los Angeles. (The official EPA Guidance ignores the obvious – that if one tank blows, the other tank, as well as the propane pressure vessels, would also explode. The maximum amount of LPG that could be stored is 25,200,000 gal of butane (120,960,000 lbs.) and 300,000 gal of propane (1,266,000 lbs.) for a total of 122,226,000 lbs. The Guidance for Risk Management Plan’s would predict a blast radius of 10.4 miles! [Calculations done by Connie Rutter.])
This facility is considered a non-responding location with no toxic substances on site, and, as such, is not required to maintain an Emergency Response Plan. As a non-responding facility the site maintains an Emergency Action Plan, which includes procedures for notification of local fire, law enforcement and medical organizations. There is no private on-site emergency response team. Essentially, a two-person crew operates the facility. They are given a week’s training at a fire school in Texas.
As ‘passive mitigation’ Rancho claims in its Risk Management Plan “In the event of a fire or earthquake, the facility is equipped with a large below-grade sump that would allow for the gravity flow of all LPG to be diverted from the tank area.” The sump/impound basin is sized to hold the liquid contents of one butane tank. Since butane and propane expand more than 200 times their volume when they evaporate, and they evaporate instantly or within minutes when released, the sump would only slightly abate the ensuing explosion.
Los Angeles City Fire Department violations. There have been 10 previous violations, most noted before Rancho became the owner. (However, the Fire Department has not been inspecting the site as frequently as before.) The Fire Department noted: “Failure to test; 4-inch ball valve on central monitor nozzle will not shut down; numerous spray nozzles are clogged on all five tanks; actuator valve failed to operate properly.” Water is used to cool surrounding tanks and equipment – it can’t extinguish an LPG fire, because both liquid and gaseous LPG float on water. But failure to maintain the emergency water-cooling capability would mean that a fire has no possibility of containment.
South Coast Air Quality Management District violations. The AQMD noted numerous violations before Rancho became the owner of the facility. AQMD is supposed to inspect terminals once a year, but has not kept to that schedule in the last four years, since Rancho has been the owner. During one inspection of the Rancho facility, AQMD had a reading of 100,000 ppm (parts per million) of butane or propane. This is equal to 10 % butane or propane, which is slightly above the flammability level of about 1 % to 9 %. If the leak had found a source of ignition, there would have been an explosive fire.
The conclusion to the consideration of Rancho’s level of compliance? Considering that LPG is extremely volatile, flammable and inextinguishable, the poor level of compliance is extremely worrisome.
The issue here is the expected life of the structures. The tanks were erected approximately 39 years ago with a 30-year life expectancy. Prof. Jean-Pierre Bardet, Chairman of the University of Southern California Civil and Environmental Engineering Department was quoted in the Long Beach Press-Telegram on 9/13/10: “Pipelines around the harbor pose unique challenges, because of the area’s history of ground-subsidence, caused by oil pumping, earthquakes and soil liquefaction.
In and around the harbor, where several major refineries convert crude oil into gasoline from hundreds of wells, much of the area’s soil is land-fill, which can ‘liquefy’ during a major quake. The harbor area is also prone to subsidence from decades of oil pumping, where giant pockets of space once filled with oil have been sucked dry deep underground.” Obviously, what the Professor says about pipelines is also true of tankage.
The tanks are made of steel, which corrodes in a marine environment, because of the salt water in the air. Tanks may also be corroded because of sulfur compounds contained in the products stored or entrained salt water delivered with the product. We don’t know if there’s a maintenance program to check for corrosion on a regular basis. Other tanks are opened and checked every two years. Rancho has one maintenance crew, which shares time between this facility and another under the Plains name, so a regular anti-corrosion program involving internal tank inspections seems doubtful...
The earthquake hazard is very real, since Rancho sits on top of the Palos Verdes fault, and the site was a former dump, which had the material removed and compacted. The EIR states that the underlying soil is “San Pedro sand.” Of course, sand is subject to liquefaction. The Palos Verdes fault is over-due for a seismic event.
As noted above, there are always risks, especially since the material under consideration, when released, is so volatile, flammable, and a resulting fire is inextinguishable. Possible causes of a release are human error (likely, when the site is under-manned), earthquake, possible tidal wave or flooding, malicious mischief or terrorism, failure due to corrosion, etc.
Whether an activity is ultra-hazardous is a question of law. SKF Farms v. Sup.Ct. (1984) 153 Cal. App. 3d 902. California has adopted the Rest.2d Torts approach for determining whether activities are abnormally dangerous:
1. Existence of a high degree of risk of some harm to the person, land, or chattel of others;
2. Likelihood that the harm that results will be great;
3. Extent to which the activity is not a matter of common usage;
4. Inability to eliminate the risk by the exercise of reasonable care;
5. Inappropriateness of the activity to the place where it is carried out;
6. Extent to which its value to the community is outweighed by its dangerous attributes.
The essential question is whether the risk created is so unusual, either because of its magnitude, or because of the circumstances surrounding it, as to justify the imposition of strict liability from the harm that results, even though it is carried on with all reasonable care.
The facts of this case satisfy the elements of an Ultra-hazardous Activity. The logical conclusion is that Rancho LPG should be removed by whatever legal means possible to prevent the disaster before it happens. When the explosion occurs, if nothing is done, there will be lots of breast-beating on the parts of law-makers – that is, those who live far enough away to survive.
(This column was written by Anthony Patchett and edited by Connie Rutter. Patchett is retired assistant head deputy Los Angeles County District attorney, Environmental Crimes/OSHA Division and former special prosecutor for the CDAA. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Rutter is a retired oil industry environmental consultant and a member of Citizens for Responsible & Equal Environmental Protection (CREEP) She can be reached at: [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 60
Pub: July 27, 2012