Click the image above to watch TRAA’s short six-minute video of experts testifying on the extreme health and safety danger from a major release of hydrofluoric acid.
View all of the TRAA Videos by clicking here.
Presented by TRAA Member Cliff Heise:We’re here because two refineries in the South Bay use massive quantities of one of the world’s most dangerous industrial chemicals, “hydrogen fluoride.” An additive touted by refineries for decades as the community’s primary safeguard has been unmasked as completely ineffective. As Congressmember Ted Lieu has stated, the community has been “hoodwinked.” Elimination of hydrogen fluoride is the only measure that will ensure community safety.
The AQMD has adopted a Performance Standard approach. If the refineries fail to demonstrate that they can protect the public from a major release, then hydrogen fluoride must be phased out.
TRAA Science Advisory Panel member Dr. George Harpoles’ seminal article on the equivalent behavior of HF and MHF in a catastrophic accidental release concludes with the paragraph:
“Dangerous concentrations of HF could persist miles away from the refinery. The typical layers-of-protection approach (barriers, water sprays, pumps to spare vessels, etc.) may save lives for certain smaller leaks. However, a more catastrophic rupture, simultaneous with failure or bypass of the protection systems, is easy to imagine – in large earthquakes, accidental or deliberate explosions, or fire. Moreover, the delivery trucks traveling to the refinery carry MHF in similar quantities, and are even more vulnerable. They have no spare vessel or water-spray system. They are exposed to the public and subject to crashes. There is clear danger to the community in the use of MHF at refineries in urban settings.”
Read the full article by clicking:
HF and MHF – Equivalent Ground Hugging Fog Hazards (Wonkish)
Several members of the TRAA Science Advisory Panel attended the AQMD Refinery Committee Meeting in Wilmington CA on September 22, 2018. This was a particularly important meeting because two of the world’s leading experts on the dangers of hydrogen-fluoride use in refineries gave presentations: Dr. Ronald Koopman on the large-scale HF release experiments — The Goldfish Tests — he conducted in the Nevada desert in 1987, and John Cornwell of Quest Consultants, conductor of the only field-scale MHF release tests in Quest’s Oklahoma facility in 1993.
The high point of the meeting was when these two experts answered the $64,000 Question: “Would 6-wt-% MHF act the same as pure HF?
Dr. Koopman expressed his profound skepticism that the additive would do much good — “I would guess that would be a very small effect.” (Watch: https://youtu.be/qwo08BtEQuM?t=7460)
John Cornwell emphasized the small amount of additive is unlikely to have much of an effect, and there’s no data to show that it does. He pointed that physical chemists use mole percent (molecule count), and states, “If MHF is 6% by weight and 1% by mole, and you are going to modify the vapor pressure or modify the characteristics of the fluid, you’ve got to have some data to show that’s true” (Watch: https://youtu.be/qwo08BtEQuM?t=8874).
This publicly-stated testimony by the world’s two leading experts expressed a high degree of skepticism of the refineries’ safety assertions for MHF. They are in line with the TRAA Science Advisory Panel and the SCAQMD Staff. MHF and HF behave the same and both form ground-hugging toxic clouds.
Click the image above to watch TRAA’s short five-minute video of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisor and AQMD Board Member Janice Hahn speaking at the Board’s February 1, 2019 Meeting.
View all of the TRAA Videos by clicking here.
Torrance Refining Company’s (ToRC) MHF website postings deliberately spread misinformation that is not only misleading, but also dangerous in that it conveys a false sense of safety with MHF.
In one of ToRC’s March 30, 2017 “Setting the Record Straight” videos, Tim Shepperd, lobbyist with HF Alkylation Consultants, presents “Why MHF Works.” He features a false analogy between water (a compound) and MHF (a mixture). Fifth-grade science standards in California include: a) that properties of a chemical compound are entirely different from those of its constituents, while b) properties of a mixture retain the properties of its constituents. Water, which is a safe compound of oxygen and hydrogen, is in no way analogous to MHF, which is an unsafe, highly toxic, volatile mixture of sulfolane and hydrofluoric acid.
Continue reading ““ToRC Misinformation in Postings about MHF” by George Harpole, Ph.D.”
The one-minute allowed each public speaker at the SCAQMD Rule 1410 Refinery Committee Meeting on September 22, 2018 wasn’t enough for TRAA Science Panel members to make substantial contributions to the meeting’s discussion. Here are five points the TRAA Science Panel members would have liked to make:
Continue reading “Five Points TRAA Science Advisory Panel Members Would Have Liked to Make at the Rule 1410 Refinery Committee Meeting”
