Nearly three months after an overheating tank of methyl methacrylate prompted some 50,000 residents to be evacuated from their West Garden Grove homes, city officials this week said they don’t expect the chemical to be stored again at the GKN Aerospace facility “before at least the first quarter of next year.”
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“There is no MMA production going on in that facility now and quite frankly, I’d be surprised if any MMA production starts before sometime next year,” Councilmember George Brietigam said, adding “there is some other work going on right now that does not involve MMA.”
Brietigam’s First District includes the GKN Aerospace facility on Western Avenue, where emergency crews responded ahead of the Memorial Day weekend to the malfunctioning tank, worried it could explode or spill the hazardous chemical.
He made the announcement during a Tuesday, Aug. 11, City Council meeting, during which dozens of community members queued up to demand answers to lingering questions about the incident and actions from their elected officials, including pushing for a pause on new military manufacturing facilities in the city or any expansions to existing sites and for tighter safety and environmental regulations.
GKN Aerospace, headquartered in the United Kingdom, is a global leader in civil and military aircraft manufacturing. Its plant in West Garden Grove employs more than 500 people and specializes in producing cockpit windshields, jet canopies and aviation windows. MMA, a toxic and volatile substance that can impact the respiratory system, is used as an ingredient in heat-resistant coatings in the aerospace industry.
But the councilmembers said they’re limited in what they can do and share, and also said that communication with GKN Aerospace has been “frustrating.”
“It’s very hard for us to not be able to share openly all the answers and not to have them, quite frankly,” Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said. ”But things are so nuanced and so wrapped in litigation and we’re demanding these requests over and over and over again and to be able to get the information that we want in the timely manner that we want.”
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“It’s extremely frustrating, especially knowing people are still hurting,” she said.
In June, a company executive publicly apologized for the chemical incident and promised a town hall for residents where their concerns could be heard. And this week, the company announced it was “currently assessing a potential claims program that would allow eligible people to resolve claims for losses incurred in connection with the May evacuation order.”
“The program being discussed would seek to make the claims process as accessible and efficient as possible, including by providing instructions in multiple languages,” the announcement said.
GKN Aerospace did not respond to questions asking for a timeline for a potential claims program or town hall meeting.
“At this point, I have no trust with GKN right now,” Brietigam said. “They promised us a community meeting. That has not happened. They promised to make things right by the people that got evacuated. That has mostly not happened.”
The company donated at least $1 million to the American Red Cross, which helped run evacuation centers during the incident, and another $4 million to community initiatives and funds set up to reimburse costs incurred by residents who had to evacuate.
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