Foes in Acid Issue Trade Jabs, File Arguments

City officials on opposite sides of a ballot issue that would curb the use of hydrogen fluoride and hydrofluoric acid at Mobil Oil’s Torrance refinery filed the last of their formal arguments on the proposal Thursday.

The atmosphere was far from cordial.

Appearing at the city clerk’s office, Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert, a leading opponent of the March 6 ballot question, accused City Councilman Dan Walker, the architect of the measure, of political self-promotion.

“This is just a political campaign for Dan Walker, who wants to run for higher office,” Geissert said outside the clerk’s office.

Walker dismissed the remark as sour grapes. “That’s the way that people act when they can’t come up with arguments,” he said. “All anybody can say is Dan Walker this, Dan Walker that.”

A Mobil official, meanwhile, quietly gathered copies of the written arguments and left without commenting.

Thursday was the deadline for filing rebuttals on the three ballot proposals scheduled to go before Torrance voters March 6. The most closely watched of the three questions is Walker’s, which would prohibit storage of hydrofluoric acid, the liquid form of hydrogen fluoride, in excess of 250 gallons.

Mobil’s refinery, the only large-scale user of the acutely toxic chemical in Torrance, usually keeps an estimated 29,000 gallons of hydrofluoric acid on hand.

On Dec. 18, each side filed a formal argument for or against the proposal, which is being called Measure A. On Thursday, each submitted a rebuttal of the other’s argument. Copies of the arguments and rebuttals will be included with sample ballots to be mailed in February to Torrance’s 74,000 registered voters.

Walker turned in position statements in favor of the measure. Writing in opposition were Geissert, City Councilman George Nakano and City Treasurer Tom Rupert. All City Council members except Walker oppose the measure.

In his pitch to voters filed Dec. 18, Walker asserts that the hydrofluoric acid stored in Mobil’s Torrance refinery is as dangerous as the methyl isocyanate gas that killed more than 2,000 people at Bhopal, India, in December, 1984.

He points to a 1986 study showing that a 1,000-gallon spill of the acid could produce a toxic cloud capable of killing anyone exposed to it within a five-mile radius. And he cites the recent history of explosions, fires and accidents at the Mobil facility that have left four dead since 1979.

Walker launched a petition drive to get his proposal on the ballot after an explosion at the Mobil refinery in 1987 that triggered a spectacular, two-day fire. The blast was caused by an excess of hydrofluoric acid in a unit that produces unleaded gas.

“The issue is the health and safety of you and your family,” Walker’s statement to voters begins. Another portion of the statement reads: “The only sure way to prevent the possibility of a catastrophic accident from happening here is to eliminate the threat. Measure A eliminates the threat.”

In their initial opposing argument, Geissert, Nakano and Rupert take Walker to task for concentrating solely on hydrofluoric acid.

The city of Torrance, it says, has already taken a more comprehensive approach by filing a public nuisance lawsuit against Mobil that could affect the storage and use of a number of acutely hazardous substances at the plant, including hydrogen fluoride.

“It is a carelessly drafted measure and is narrow in scope,” the statement says of Walker’s proposal. Critics of Measure A also allude to the fact that Walker is financing his ballot effort with surplus campaign cash.

“The anticipated lengthy and very costly defense of this measure would be paid for by the Torrance taxpayers,” the statement says, “not by the Dan Walker election committee.”

In his rebuttal, Walker asserts that the lawsuit filed by the city offers “absolutely no guarantees” that Mobil will be prohibited from continuing to store large quantities of hydrofluoric acid at its refinery.

He also portrays himself in need of allies in a lonely fight against Mobil.

“To defeat the Mobil Oil Corporation, this cannot be a battle between one councilman and Mobil, or seven council members and Mobil,” he writes. “Torrance residents must be brought into the battle.”

The city officials opposing Walker’s initiative ask voters to consider the credentials of those in their camp.

“Whom do you trust?” their statement asks, “Dan walker or the entire City Council, its legal advisers and professional staff to deal with the serious safety problems at the Mobil Oil refinery?”

The arguments and rebuttals to be mailed out by the clerk’s office in February will not be the only forum for debate on Measure A.

Next month, Mobil is scheduled to launch a 15-week local advertising campaign, another stage in efforts launched recently by the company to improve the refinery’s public image.

In November, Mobil completed a 25-week ad campaign featuring profiles of refinery employees. The company has also held five public tours of the refinery and began delivering a monthly company newspaper to all Torrance households.

The ads, scheduled to start in January, will feature descriptions of key operations at the plant such as firefighting and worker training, according to Mobil spokesman Barry Engelberg. Each description will be written by a Mobil employee in charge of the area in question and accompanied by a photograph of the employee, he said.

Asserting that all this activity is aimed only at improving Mobil’s relationship with Torrance--not at defeating Walker’s proposal--Engelberg indicated more Mobil publicity may be on the way.

“The community relations program we have is totally separate” from any advertising campaign Mobil may mount against the initiative, he said. “There is no firm decision on what will be done about the initiative effort.”

Walker declined to discuss his campaign plans in detail, saying only that he will “do what is necessary” to ensure that Measure A is passed. However, he said he has spent $65,000 in surplus campaign money so far--most of it for a mailer sent to Torrance residents earlier this year to drum up interest in his petition drive.

Walker said he has $20,000 in remaining surplus campaign money and plans to hold a $500-a-plate fund-raiser in February. He declined to say how much he will earmark for the campaign, however. Whatever the amount, he added, it is sure to be less than Mobil spends to defeat the measure.