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OP/ED - The recent landslide of chemical leaks, fires and extremely dangerous events have proven, without any doubt, that elected public officials and government agencies have failed to protect the public. These incidents strongly suggest that family residential areas are laced with high risk operations that they remain blithely unaware of. These recent red flag alerts should call for serious action that provides residents the ability to “know” the degree of danger that they and their families face in order to respond “prior” to any catastrophic event.
Warehouse fire in Boyle Heights
As the enormous frozen storage warehouse burned in Boyle Heights (for over one week), it emitted astronomical levels of soot and particulate matter including bromine, chlorine and volatile organic compounds. All very harmful elements with serious consequences to health. While the surrounding neighbors struggled with thick smoke, emissions and the associated horrific smells, Mayor Bass and the Fire Chief made appearances to the public that recommended no evacuations, no real danger and simply “sheltering in place”. The exposure to these elements will undoubtedly result in damaging health conditions for those who followed this ill advice. There are lawsuits mounting against the Lineage warehouse owners as I write this piece.
Rancho LPG Holdings LLC – Plains All American Pipeline
Disturbing as these many inappropriately placed hazardous locations are, there is one that stands above and apart from them all by sheer magnitude and scale of its disaster potential. Criminally convicted, “Plains All American Pipeline” operates the Rancho LPG LLC. storage site in San Pedro.* Their massive and highly explosive butane and propane tanks sit within 1,000 to 1,500 ft. of pre-existing homes, schools and at the edge of the Port of LA. Their two huge tanks store in excess of 25 Million gallons of butane gas. Modeling has evaluated a blast radius of over 10 miles while the antiquated facility offers a plethora of ripe opportunities for disaster. An event at this site would likely affect approximately ½ million people and decimate the ports of LA and Long Beach. Most residents within that 10 miles radius have no idea of this facility, nor of the high risk that it poses.
How does "anyone" explain this complete recklessness? Governor, Mayor; If you think those Palisades fires were a problem then you should immediately don the thinking cap on this one. The stored energy of the butane gas at this facility is the equivalent of 6 to 8 Hiroshima sized atomic bombs (or about 90 to 120 kilotons of TNT). Simply try to imagine the horrific scope of catastrophe resulting from an event there. The blast wave alone would likely vaporize the first two miles while the inferno would decimate the ports as its fire engulfs a hornets nest of underground chemical and fuel pipelines extending up the coast and inland.
Exempted from regulations and public notice under the influence of the Nixon administration in 1973, homeowners only learned years later what was stored at the location and its extreme danger. They have fought the City and Port of LA, along with the Federal and State gov’t (for over 50 years) to have the facility closed or moved to an alternate location for safety purposes. There has never been a dispute over the high risk that it represents, however, the political courage necessary to take on Big Oil has been pathetically absent. The barrage of Campaign dollars from the oil industry has resulted in political pandering from elected officials to placate the public while doing nothing even remotely protective. A long succession of public officials has stepped forward deferring action on a wing and a prayer that the disaster would not happen on their watch. So far, that twisted strategy has worked. However, the heavy reliance on “hope” without action will only promote the very worst of outcomes.
Death and widespread destruction are guaranteed from this unfathomably dangerous facility…..sooner or later. As always, the losers and victims; the simple citizens.
*Plains All American Pipeline, was convicted in 2018 of one felony and eight misdemeanor criminal counts arising from the 2015 Refugio oil spill, operates the Rancho LPG LLC storage facility in San Pedro.
(Janet Schaaf-Gunter is the Administrative Communications Officer for San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners United, Inc. (SPPHU) and a lifelong San Pedro resident. For decades, she has been a leading advocate on Harbor-area environmental, land use, and public safety issues, including the landmark China Shipping litigation and opposition to the Rancho LPG facility.)
