CommentsGUEST COMMENTARY-San Pedro, California serves as the home to the Port of Los Angeles. Within a few scant miles are another five communities representing approximately 250,000 people.
As folks from these neighborhoods peruse the household goods at their local Home Depot store on No. Gaffey Street, few are aware of the extraordinary threat to their home improvement projects lurking just across the street. The Rancho LPG storage facility, (photo above) operated by Plains All American Pipeline, stores in excess of 25 million gallons of Liquefied Petroleum Gas. Using the EPA formula for calculating “worst case blast radius for flammables,” each of their two 12.5 million-gallon tanks of butane has a 3+ mile blast radius.
While America scoffs at the irresponsibility of the Lebanese government, and criticizes their 6-year disregard of high danger posed by the Ammonium Nitrate responsible for the disaster at their port (photo, left), the U.S. is continuing to ignore their own extraordinary recklessness. One of the most flagrant examples of this blatant ignorance is illustrated by this particular facility, located on the precipice of our own Port.
For almost 50 years, the Port and City of LA, including a four decades long succession of public officials, have continued to turn a blind eye to a threat that will make Beirut’s devastating explosion look like a Boy Scout's campfire.
In 1973, the Nixon administration’s energy policy embraced the very misguided notion that volatile “Liquefied Petroleum Gas” might well be America’s energy source of the future weaning us off of Mid-East oil. This concept was never feasible due to the highly volatile and explosive nature of this gas. However, Nixon believed in the potential of America’s switch to its broad use and began an effort to stockpile large volumes of it in anticipation.
It was during that era that the City of Los Angeles cooperated in the introduction of this massive LPG facility located adjacent to the Port of LA in order to receive large volumes of LPG arriving from Algerian ships. The development was placed on a “fast track,” exempting it from a litany of regulations including building permits and fire regulations. At the time there were pre-existing homes and schools within 1,000 feet of the location.
Two 12.5 million-gallon refrigerated tanks, and five 60,000-gallon pressurized tanks, were constructed on extremely seismically vulnerable land within one of three known “Earthquake Rupture Zones” within the City of Los Angeles. An ERZ is an area where “multiple” earthquake faults converge. The largest converging Fault, The Palos Verdes Fault, has a magnitude potential of 7.4.
The grounds of the facility are also designated by USGS as “landslide” and “liquefaction” zones. The “purported” seismic substandard of the existing antiquated 12.5 million gallon “unpermitted” tanks is a 5.5 magnitude.
Just over a month ago, the City of Los Angeles endured a “hellacious” butane fire from a downtown smoke shop which severely burned several firefighters. The source? Very small canisters of butane gas. Following that event, our City Attorney Mike Feuer, and Mayor Eric Garcetti repeatedly condemned the owners of the shop and have filed over 300 criminal charges against them. Those of us living in the “literal vaporization zone” of this massive butane gas storage facility are outraged.
Mayor Garcetti, and our Councilman Joe Buscaino, have publicly acknowledged the extraordinary danger from this facility, but have stated that there is “nothing that they can do!” Really? In the face of that acknowledgment of high risk, the City of LA has approved over 700 new homes currently being developed within one mile of this site, inviting even more innocent families into this death zone.
The business operation of the original facility changed after Nixon’s ouster to become what it is today. This facility serves strictly as an “off-site storage location” for the “excess butane” produced by the distant refineries of Valero and Marathon oil corporations. This "dumping" allows the refineries to move great volumes of their most explosive commodity off grounds and circumvents their investment into the highly regulated tanks demanded by today's standards.
The City of Los Angeles has control over “public trust land” that facilitates the transport of this gas on an “as needed basis” to and from the refineries. These “permitted” uses of pipeline and rail can easily be revoked by the City under their concerns for public safety. This action would immediately render the LPG facility “inoperable.” It would also force the refineries to accommodate their own gas by building modern, more seismically upgraded, and highly regulated tanks on their premises.
These two refineries are very aware of the incredibly high risk that this LPG facility poses to both residents and to the Ports of LA and Long Beach, However, between our public officials and these big oil corporations, there seems to be an extreme shortage of moral conscience. The greater objective is to keep the revenue stream of big oil secure, and the campaign funds flowing.
As we wrestle with COVID-19, and witness the devastation being caused by global warming, we realize that there are many things out of our control. But the neon red flag being waved in our faces from this Rancho LPG facility represents an entirely preventable disaster. Whether it is the promised earthquake, an act of terrorism, antiquated infrastructure failure, or a simple accident, the ruination to the LA Harbor region will be the same. The destruction will be overwhelming in its scope.
According to Dr. Carl Southwell, a Professor of Risk Policy at UCLA, “The 2750 Tons of Ammonium Nitrate responsible for the devastating explosion in Beirut converts to a mere 77,000 Gallons of Butane Gas in energy equivalency.” Focus for just a moment on what that translates to in a blast and an ensuing fire from over 25 million gallons of butane. And, yet our government officials tell us “there is nothing we can do.”
We simply ask that our political leadership and public agencies take a serious look at the grim reality of Beirut, magnify it by at least a factor of 10, and then tell us that again. The words “Criminal Negligence” leap to mind.
(Janet Schaaf-Gunter is a a member of San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners United.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.)
Is the Port of Los Angeles Really ‘Safer’ than Beirut?
