Torrance Asks for Tougher Safety Contract With Mobil

Fearing that a safety agreement with Mobil Oil is not working, Torrance city officials Tuesday asked a judge to enforce swifter compliance and extend the program for at least a year.

If approved by the court, the extension would mark the first significant change in the unique consent decree, which halted Torrance’s 1989 public nuisance lawsuit against the giant oil company over safety and environmental issues. When the decree was announced on Oct. 18, 1990, both sides touted it as a model of cooperation between government and industry.

But city leaders say they are dismayed at how poorly the decree is working out.

“We’ve reached the end of our patience,” Mayor Katy Geissert said. “We feel that the public has been misled and we have been misled. . . . The enforcement has been flawed.”

Mobil agreed as part of the decree to phase out the refinery’s use of dangerous hydrofluoric acid over a seven-year period. The company also agreed to pay for an impartial safety adviser to monitor the refinery and report unsafe conditions to a hired judge through 1997.

But on Tuesday the city petitioned retired Superior Court Judge Harry V. Peetris, who is overseeing the decree, to extend oversight until 1998 on grounds that the adviser, Westinghouse Electric Corp., has dragged its feet since being appointed last May.

According to the 31-page petition, Westinghouse missed an Oct. 1 deadline to submit a detailed outline of how it will conduct a safety audit at the refinery, has “done practically nothing to carry out its substantive duties,” has insisted on unnecessary work contracts, has failed to open a Torrance office for the project and has sent employees onto the Mobil refinery site only three times in the last five months.

Westinghouse has blamed the delays on both Mobil and Torrance, saying Mobil failed to release crucial documents until last week, while the city has delayed agreement on the two work contracts Westinghouse says it needs.

Westinghouse officials in Pittsburgh declined comment on the city’s petition until they have had a chance to review it.