Chemical Spills

Hundreds of gallons of a flammable and toxic liquid spilled Tuesday as it was being transferred from a truck to a storage tank, fire officials said. Firefighters responded to reports of spill at Neville Chemical, at 2201 E. Cerritos Ave., at 12:29 p.m. When they arrived, most of the spilled calsol thinner had already seeped into the ground, a fire dispatcher said. Calsol is a moderately toxic and highly flammable chemical, the dispatcher said.

A tractor-trailer carrying a dangerous acid overturned on a highway north of Philadelphia, prompting authorities to order thousands of residents to leave the area for almost nine hours. The tanker, carrying 33,000 pounds of corrosive hydrofluoric acid, a component for household detergents, flipped on a sloping curve in the road at the edge of Wind Gap and began leaking slowly. Hydrofluoric acid in low doses can irritate the eyes, nose and respiratory tract, and in higher doses it can cause severe burns, chronic lung disease or even death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

The hazardous materials team from the Orange County Fire Department investigated Tuesday the release of a chemical substance that was discharged into a storm drain from The Times' Orange County plant, at Harbor Boulevard and Sunflower Avenue. Costa Mesa Fire Capt. Steve Tiedeman said Times officials called authorities after tracing a pungent smell from the newspaper plant to a storm drain located south of South Coast Drive.

French police suggested that mercury found in the car of a Russian lawyer who defends Kremlin foes was spilled accidentally. Karina Moskalenko has said she fears the mercury might have been planted to frighten or poison her. A Paris police official said the mercury in the car in Strasbourg, France, came from a barometer that broke while being transported by the car's previous owner, an antiques dealer.

More than 30 workers were evacuated from an industrial area Thursday after a chemical spill released a foul-smelling cloud from a milling plant, officials said. No one was injured or became ill, officials said. Police, five firetrucks and two hazardous-materials units responded to a call around 6:40 p.m. from workers at a Coca-Cola bottling plant who reported a stench and a chemical cloud looming over the ArrowChem plant.

A chemical spill at a plating company on Monday forced the evacuation of about 50 people working in the plant and other nearby businesses, fire officials said. About 100 pounds of sodium hydrosulfite spilled at Platecorp, 1223 N. Batavia St., about 5:30 p.m., authorities said. Hazardous material teams from Santa Ana and Anaheim assisted Orange firefighters in containing the spill that had the "potential to be highly toxic when mixed with water," Orange County fire dispatcher John Shope said.

A pickup truck carrying pool-cleaning chemicals crashed into a Santa Monica bank building Sunday, seriously burning the driver and sending toxic liquids into the closed bank, authorities said. The truck skidded out of control on Montana Avenue and rammed into the First Federal bank, said Santa Monica Fire Department spokeswoman Roni Roseberg. The unidentified driver, who was scorched by the leaking chemicals, also suffered head and chest injuries in the crash, Roseberg said.

A truck accident last fall prompted the City Council to tighten the law on chemical spills. The council adopted an ordinance Wednesday that makes the spiller responsible for all costs incurred during the cleanup of any mishap. The ordinance includes, but is not limited to, hazardous materials. "We never had much of a problem with spills until this last year, and now we've been going back and forth with the trucking firm and the insurance company," City Manager Bill Little said.

Emergency planning in case of fires or chemical spills and state requirements on toxic substances will be discussed at a two-part breakfast seminar for Ventura County businesses Jan. 17 and Jan. 24. The seminar, sponsored by the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., is aimed at companies handling toxic materials, which includes "almost all companies with any container larger than five gallons of any flammable liquid," event chairman Kevin Gieschen said.

Hazardous materials experts were called to two central county businesses Thursday night to clean up chemical spills, then to help fight a chemical fire that forced evacuation of the surrounding area. The county hazardous materials team first picked up 15 gallons of petroleum naphtha, a highly flammable solvent used for degreasing and cleaning mechanical parts, at an Irvine laboratory.

Jordan High School was evacuated Tuesday after a student sprayed an unidentified chemical into the hallway of the main building, officials said. The incident occurred about 10:45 a.m., said Sgt. Aaron Pisarzewicz of the Los Angeles School Police Department. No one was hit directly with the spray, though seven staff members complained of minor nasal and throat irritation, said d'Lisa Davies, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. A county hazardous materials team swept the area, and a Fire Department squad took air samples, walking the building's two floors and going through each classroom as students waited outdoors, Davies said.

A pickup crashed into a big rig carrying boxes of powdered pesticide on California 99, causing an explosion that left the road covered with toxic chemicals, authorities said Tuesday. The fiery crash was reported shortly after 9 p.m. Monday, just south of the small town of Earlimart, about 40 miles north of Bakersfield, the California Highway Patrol said. The semi truck was carrying chlorpyrifos, a commonly used insecticide.

A day after two boys were discovered playing with mercury at a Riverside County elementary school, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday told county officials to evacuate more than 950 students and called in teams to determine whether the hazardous material had been properly cleaned up. County officials said they had learned that after school Tuesday, the boys, ages 6 and 9, allegedly climbed through a fence into the yard of a welding shop in Romoland and stole vials of mercury.

Blue cheese dressing and concrete sealant spilled into a canal leading to the Salton Sea when 19 cars in a 52-car freight train derailed in the Southern California desert. It will take a few days to clean up the mess, Union Pacific officials said Wednesday. The Los Angeles-bound train derailed for unknown reasons about 4 p.m. Tuesday along California 111 north of the Salton Sea, authorities said.

As Los Angeles transit officials pour millions of dollars into cameras and other high-tech security devices in the wake of 9/11, one major security gap persists: No one is stationed underground to help subway passengers in a crisis. Unlike most U.S. subways, Los Angeles' works on the honor system. There are no gates to pass through, no turnstiles that open when a fare is paid and no attendants -- let alone police officers -- stationed on the platforms.

A chemical spill in a southern China river prompted officials to cut off water to 20,000 people for several days, the official China Daily newspaper said today. The paper said that a power plant on the upper reaches of the Yuexi River in Sichuan province was to blame for the pollution. Environmental officials suspended the water supply to the town of Guanyin on Wednesday.

Several gallons of fluid spilled from an air-conditioning unit at The Times Orange County plant Tuesday and flowed into storm drains, but the solution never reached a drainage canal, authorities said. The accident occurred as a crew was working on rooftop air-conditioning equipment at the Sunflower Avenue plant, where three past spills recently resulted in $30,000 in fines to the newspaper.

Seventy-five workers at Memorial Health Center in Huntington Beach were evacuated Friday afternoon after an employee spotted a leak of a hazardous chemical in a storage room on the first floor of the building. According to Huntington Beach fire officials, a total of 31 firefighters and Orange County Health Care Agency specialists helped in the cleanup effort Friday afternoon and evening. There were no injuries, they said.

China will invest more than $3 billion over the next five years to clean up the Songhua River, a key source of drinking water for tens of millions of people that was polluted in November by a toxic spill, reports said. The effort will cover four provinces that are home to more than 62 million people, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. It will provide more than 90% of the area's residents with clean drinking water by 2010, according to environmental officials quoted by the paper.

Investigators are looking into what caused two toxic mercury spills in as many months in a residential neighborhood. Crews from the federal Environmental Protection Agency cleaned up most of the latest spill by Thursday, a day after residents were warned to stay indoors after the discovery of thousands of tiny mercury beads in a street gutter. EPA officials said the danger of exposure has been eliminated.