The Cupertino Courier

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An accident points out local hazmat vulnerability

No system is in place to alert residents of hazardous spill

By HUGH BIGGAR

A truck accident involving explosives in Fremont on March 31 underscored Cupertino's and Santa Clara County's lack of readiness for a similar accident.

At about 5 a.m., a pick-up truck on southbound Highway 680 rear-ended a big rig carrying 32,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and detonating and blasting materials--the same material used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The large truck, owned by ETI Golden State Explosives, had been headed to Cupertino.

The accident resulted in no fatalities or fires, but local officials say it pinpoints a larger regional concern.

"It can be a danger. It would need a heat source to ignite it," said Geoff LaTendresse, a division chief with the Fremont Fire Department.

"There is a real vulnerability," said Marsha Hovey, Cupertino's emergency preparedness coordinator. "We don't have anything in place to alert the public."

As was the case in Fremont, in case of an accident the Santa Clara County Fire Department would dispatch a hazardous materials team. The team would use special equipment to handle the incident and chemicals to determine potential biohazards.

"We have a good way of identifying the problem and containing it, but if something gets up in the atmosphere, we would have to have people out in the neighborhood with bullhorns," Hovey said.

Previously, Cupertino and other communities in Santa Clara County had used sirens to alert the public of emergencies. But the end of air raid drills gradually led to the phasing out of the sirens, Hovey said.

There is also an emergency broadcast system on the radio, "but people don't listen to their car radios much anymore," Hovey said. "We could do email or text message, but we don't

have the staff to maintain [such a system]," she said. "We could possibly have helicopters alerting the people from the air with bullhorns and police with bullhorns in the neighborhoods."

Hovey said there is also a need in Santa Clara County for a common system to alert people of dangers--one that would be easy recognize regardless of community.

"There is a committee working on it but it hasn't been explored in much detail and that's a big problem," she said.

LaTendresse also said the potential for such dangerous situations is increasing.

"It's an unfortunate fact of life," he said. "It's not unusual to have [hazardous cargoes] going up and down the freeways. The materials have to be transported and rails, ships and roads are used very frequently."

Golden State Explosives, based in Plymouth, Calif., did not return phone calls for this article. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the company had 15 safety violation between 2002 and 2004, five of them considered serious. A 1997 highway accident in Los Angeles County also involved a Golden State Explosives truck. The accident spilled ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel onto a highway.

John Giavanola, a community affairs officer with Hanson Permanente Cement in Cupertino, said the company had used Golden State Explosives for its quarrying activity in the past. But he could not confirm the truck involved in the March 31 accident had been heading to Hanson Permanente.