Flirting With a Toxic Disaster

The June, 1985, chemical fire in an Anaheim pesticide and fertilizer warehouse led to enactment of a state law that requires all cities either to adopt a chemical disclosure law of their own or turn the responsibility over to county officials.

It is wise law, needed to protect the lives of residents and firefighters from the hundreds of dangerous chemicals being stored in the community. But the law has one serious shortcoming. There is no deadline for compliance.

A toxic chemical fire that broke out last Sunday at a metal-finishing plant in Newport Beach focused attention on that deficiency and should prompt legislators to correct the omission.

Fortunately, the Newport Beach fire chief had listed the hazardous materials he found in the plant during a routine inspection, and firefighters knew what they were dealing with. But more than a year after the state disclosure law was passed, Newport Beach still has not acted on it. Neither have the cities of Buena Park, Fullerton and Garden Grove. And many of the cities that have still lack the ability in this computer age to immediately produce the data in an emergency. That’s a deficiency that robs any disclosure program of its very reason for existing.

The Newport Beach chemical fire fortunately wasn’t the tragedy it might have been. It should serve as a warning to cities without a formal disclosure program to stop flirting with disaster.