With all evacuation orders lifted and the threat of a catastrophic blast averted, city and county officials are working another problem: How much will the response to the malfunctioning chemical tank in Garden Grove cost, and who will pay for it?
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Nearly 50,000 people were displaced from their homes over Memorial Day weekend as first responders worked to prevent an overheated storage tank from exploding or spilling up to 7,000 gallons of the chemical methyl methacrylate.
Emergency response crews diffused the situation by Tuesday and lifted the evacuations and now, “the GKN Aerospace hazardous material incident in Garden Grove is transitioning out of the emergency response phase,” the OC Health Care Agency announced Friday, May 29, and entering the next phase of site cleanup and waste removal.
HCA and the county’s Certified Unified Program Agency are taking the lead on that effort, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency providing technical support. The Health Care Agency, “in a regulatory role, will work closely with GKN Aerospace throughout this next phase” and the South Coast Air Quality Management District will oversee air monitoring.
With the immediate threat to public safety over, many of the residents and the business owners in the evacuation zone are wondering where they can get help with the unexpected costs and loss of revenue they incurred, and cities are getting a grasp of their final bill.
“Every city is going to have different costs,” said Garden Grove Councilmember George Brietigam, whose district includes GKN Aerospace where the tank malfunctioned. “OCFA, being the county entity, would be the one to act as a liaison for recovery of the cost.”
Many cities in the county contract with the Orange County Fire Authority for services, including Garden Grove, Stanton and Westminster, which took the brunt of evacuation orders over the long weekend. Garden Grove, for example, paid $29 million this fiscal year for its contract with OCFA, which would cover this incident response, city spokesperson Jonathan Garcia said.
But dealing with the crisis at GKN Aerospace has put other strains on city resources.
Garden Grove reported an estimated $728,000 in “incident-related costs” to OCFA, Garcia said in an email earlier this week, adding the figure “remains preliminary and is subject to change” and did not include the costs of supplies, materials or vehicle-related expenses.
And a key bill that will have to be paid by some entity: The water bill for the approximate 9 million gallons spent cooling the tank over five days – about 1,250 gallons per minute.
Michelle Anderson, the county’s director of emergency management, said cities can submit invoices to FEMA for reimbursement.
Fifth District OC Supervisor Katrina Foley said the county is anticipating roughly half a million dollars in expenses, including medical supplies and evacuation materials. That’s not taking into account personnel costs such as overtime for law enforcement and first responders, Foley said, which are still being finalized.
Foley said the total cost won’t be clear until after June 3, the deadline for organizations involved with evacuation and recovery efforts to submit their expenses through WebEOC, a crisis management software used by local, state and federal agencies.
The expenses will then be sent to the state’s Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES, for approval.
“We have a really good system for cost recovery, given that in the last five years, we’ve had so many critical incidents,” Foley said, referring to the numerous extreme weather events that have occurred in the county.
Sara Kennedy, the assistant chief of business services at OCFA, said the agency will seek reimbursement on behalf of city governments from FEMA’s public assistance program.
FEMA covers up to 75% of emergency response costs, but does not provide reimbursements for individuals, including business owners who may have lost income over the holiday weekend, said Anderson, the county’s director of emergency management.
Anderson said at the Board of Supervisors meeting this week that individuals impacted by the incident could submit their claims with GKN Aerospace — the “possible responsible party” for the crisis.
“At this point, we’re not aware of a method that the company has set up for individuals to submit claims,” she said.
In a statement posted to the company’s website on Wednesday, GKN Senior Vice President Steve Carlin, who oversees the Garden Grove site’s programs, said the company is “deeply grateful to OCFA and the entire first responder community for their efforts over the past several days.”
“We recognize there is more work ahead. Our focus remains on supporting the community, working closely with authorities, and continuing to ensure a safe and responsible path forward,” he said. “I am personally committed to working with the Garden Grove, Stanton, and broader Orange County communities on these efforts.”
The statement did not directly address the reimbursement question, and calls and emails on Friday for more information were not immediately returned.
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Crunching numbers
The city of Garden Grove’s finance department “has set up a special account to track all costs incurred by the city in responding to the emergency,” city staffers told councilmembers in a report ahead of a Tuesday community meeting, but no deadline for finalizing that accounting was offered.
The city has created a survey for residents, businesses and community members to gather information on how they have been “impacted by the recent chemical emergency and evacuation orders,” Garcia said Thursday.
As of Wednesday, May 27, the city of Anaheim estimated $698,435 in costs incurred by its police and fire departments, community services, public works and local emergency operations center. The bulk of the costs are related to the Police Department, with 169 personnel clocking in 2,037 hours over the Memorial Day weekend, totalling about $252,139.
“At this time, this does not include other staff that worked the incident, including city managers, communications, call center staff, city attorney and others,” city spokesperson Mike Lyster said, adding, “It also doesn’t include ongoing costs that will be incurred in the days ahead.”
The figure also does not cover expenses for the approximately 2,000 homeowners or 150 businesses within the four blocks of Anaheim included in the evacuation zone.
Neighboring cities that didn’t have much or any square footage that fell into the evacuation zone were also called on to help with the response.
Fountain Valley Fire Chief Chris Nigg said between May 22 and Tuesday, May 26, when the final evacuations were lifted, total costs for both fire and police department personnel in Fountain Valley were approximately $14,086, Nigg said.
Over the long weekend, he said, Fountain Valley police officers, including sergeants and corporals, worked 12.5-hour shifts, assisting Garden Grove with “traffic control operations and patrolling evacuated neighborhoods.”
Much of the city of Stanton was evacuated during the chemical threat. Most of the population of the compact city of 3.1 square miles lives immediately north of the GKN Aerospace plant.
“That’s a lot of businesses and that’s a lot of residents,” Stanton Mayor David J. Shawver said, adding the “crux” of Stanton’s most profitable businesses fell into the evacuation zone and naming the luxury apartment community, Cloud House, The Home Depot, Walmart and Rodeo 39 Market, which all sit along Beach Boulevard.
“We are looking at this from the bottom up,” Shawver said. “We want to make sure that those families that cannot afford rents, and cannot afford food or gas, and that were either displaced from their homes or actually were not able to go to work — We want to make sure that they are taken care of.”
The OC Community Resilience Fund, a partnership of Orange County United Way and 2-1-1, is now active to help support residents affected by the evacuations. It is also taking donations.
Donations can be designated to Stanton, Garden Grove, Westminster, Cypress, Anaheim or Buena Park to “help provide $250 cash assistance cards to eligible residents to support immediate household needs.”
Find more information at unitedwayoc.org/ways-to-give/oc-community-resilience-fund.
Foley offered several suggestions for affected residents and businesses; first and foremost, that people submit their receipts to GKN Aerospace directly, asking for reimbursement.
“I highly recommend people do that,” she said, adding that people can also contact their own insurance company – if they have renters general liability or homeowners insurance – to file the claim.
“The only way they get recouped is if the company sets up a claims-filing program, or they file a claim with their insurance and then insurance goes after the company,” she said.
Following the 2021 oil spill when a pipe ruptured and spewed oil off Huntington Beach, Foley said the responsible company set up a claims form where people could go online, fill out the claims, and submit the documentation and proof of receipts. With that up and running, she said, the company then processed those claims as they came in.
“If it was $110 dollars for an overnight stay, they’d just send immediate payment to the person,” she said, adding that more intricate claims that involved damage to boats or other issues were filed through lawyers.
Several lawsuits over the incident have been filed against GKN Aerospace.
County officials said updates regarding the cleanup will be posted at occupainfo.com.
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