The tank at GKN Aerospace, which manufactures cockpit windows and shields for military aircraft, had been heating up after a cooling system valve failed. Officials used drones to read the tank’s temperature from outside the facility while crews deployed an unmanned ground monitoring system and water cannon to spray the tank and keep it cool.

At the height of the emergency, officials feared the tank could rupture or explode, potentially sending a toxic chemical cloud over nearby neighborhoods. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office sent more than 700 personnel to Garden Grove as local and state agencies responded.

The immediate danger eased only after the tank cracked enough to release pressure without triggering a blast. Evacuation orders were lifted by Tuesday night, but the near-disaster has left residents, community advocates and environmental experts demanding answers about what regulators knew before the crisis — and whether California’s oversight system missed warning signs.

The incident has exposed possible gaps across several regulatory programs. Air quality officials had flagged compliance problems at GKN years before the emergency. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is now investigating whether any laws were broken. Community leaders say residents deserve a clear accounting of what safety measures were in place, how the chemical was being stored and why the situation came so close to catastrophe.

GKN had been working through environmental compliance issues at the same time regulators and local planners were reviewing a proposed expansion of the Garden Grove facility, which would increase production capacity for components used in F-35 military fighter jets.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has inspected GKN three times in the past decade. For much of that period, the facility was classified as a “minor source” of emissions under the district’s permitting system, a designation that did not require frequent inspections.

Records show that limited oversight may have coincided with years of compliance problems, though regulators have said those violations were not tied to the storage tank that held methyl methacrylate, the chemical involved in the emergency.

In 2020, GKN voluntarily reported certain issues that prompted South Coast air regulators to inspect the site and review company records. The district’s investigation found that violations had occurred as far back as 2017. According to regulatory documents, the plant, located less than a mile from homes and schools, failed to maintain required emissions records, operated new equipment without proper permits and used equipment that did not match the descriptions in its existing permits.

The air district did not issue a formal notice of violation until April 2021. A settlement was not finalized until late 2024, when GKN agreed to pay more than $900,000. The company did not admit liability in the agreement, which resolved 14 alleged violations.

South Coast regulators now consider GKN a “major source” of emissions, a category subject to annual inspections. A district spokesperson said the company has applied for a more comprehensive permit at the direction of regulators.

For residents and community advocates, the timeline has added to frustration.

“That delay and the fact that GKN was allowed to operate with what felt like impunity has meant tens of thousands of Garden Grove residents are now paying the price,” said Tracy La, executive director of VietRISE, a nonprofit that works with Vietnamese and immigrant communities in Orange County.

La said evacuees faced costs for temporary lodging, replacement medications, transportation and other emergency needs after being forced from their homes.

“It is frustrating that everyday people are the ones who continue to bear the consequences when government officials are unwilling to hold powerful and wealthy corporations accountable,” she said.

Garden Grove is part of Little Saigon, one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the country and home to many immigrants and refugees from the Vietnam War.

For some residents, methyl methacrylate is not an obscure aerospace chemical. It is a workplace hazard they have fought for years to remove from nail salons.

Lisa Fu, who leads the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, said Vietnamese nail salon workers across the state campaigned against the chemical because of its effects on the lungs, skin and eyes. California banned the use of methyl methacrylate in nail salons and cosmetology schools in 2015 after workers raised health concerns.

Now, Fu said, the same chemical was leaking from a tank only a short distance from Little Saigon. She said members of her organization and residents reported nosebleeds, itching and the deaths of pet birds.

Air monitors placed near the plant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the South Coast air district recorded pollution levels within normal ranges. But Fu said the gap between those readings and residents’ experiences has deepened distrust.

“At press conferences, people hear there are no fumes, no vapors, no leaks, no contamination,” Fu said. “They say it is safe. Safe for whom? We believe the community when these stories keep coming in.”

Community advocates are urging Garden Grove officials to close the facility and adopt a moratorium on military manufacturing facilities and expansions in the city.

GKN’s more comprehensive air permit application is pending before the South Coast air district, and the public is expected to have an opportunity to comment. A district spokesperson said the agency had planned to release the permit for public review before the end of the year, though that timeline could change because of the emergency.

The incident has also raised questions about whether California’s chemical safety rules leave residents vulnerable when hazardous substances fall outside the state’s strictest accidental release programs.

Methyl methacrylate is a volatile chemical widely used in plastics manufacturing. Officials feared the GKN tank could fail as the liquid overheated, spilling thousands of gallons of chemical material or triggering an explosion.

Andrew J. Whelton, an environmental engineering professor at Purdue University, compared the pressure buildup to “a soda can left in a car in the middle of summer.”

“The pressure inside the can builds beyond what the metal can withstand,” he said.

When the tank began overheating, it set off a chemical reaction that response crews could not stop. Craig Covey, a division chief with the Orange County Fire Authority, said at a May 22 news conference that the reaction had clogged valves crews needed to inject a neutralizing agent.

Methyl methacrylate is not a regulated chemical under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program or California’s parallel accidental release program, known as CalARP. That means the tank may have been covered only by a lower-level hazardous materials program, limiting the regulatory tools available to oversee its storage.

“If you live there, if you are a neighbor, can you go see what chemicals they have stored on site?” asked Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. “No, you can’t.”

The federal program has not added reactive chemicals to its list of covered substances, despite recommendations from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical accidents. The Trump administration has proposed eliminating funding for the board after October and rolling back 2024 changes to the Risk Management Program that expanded some chemical safety requirements.

California has a similar gap. The California Environmental Protection Agency confirmed to CalMatters that methyl methacrylate is not regulated under the state’s accidental release program.

Orange County health officials said GKN had a hazardous materials business plan, a lower-level document listing chemicals stored at the facility, but did not have a risk management plan. The county said CalARP does not apply to the plant because methyl methacrylate is not on the program’s list of regulated chemicals.

CalMatters also asked the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health whether workplace safety rules for high-risk industrial processes applied to the facility, which could have made it subject to accidental release rules through another route. The facility had been the subject of several occupational safety and health inspections before the tank emergency. Cal/OSHA did not answer the question before deadline.

Williams said chemicals outside federal and state accidental release programs may also be excluded from community emergency planning and drills, leaving nearby residents unsure of the risks or how officials would respond.

GKN did not respond to written questions before deadline. In recent days, the company has thanked the community and emergency responders.

“We recognize that much work remains,” said Steve Carlin, a senior vice president at GKN who oversees programs at the Garden Grove facility.

Angela Johnson Meszaros, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, said residents near facilities such as GKN have reason to believe regulators are ensuring safety.

When something like this happens, she said, people become angry because they wonder, “Wait, nobody was paying attention to this, and now I’m sleeping on the sidewalk?”

She said the broader regulatory system is aimed at bringing companies into compliance, not necessarily ensuring they are safe enough to operate near dense neighborhoods.

“We have a system built around the idea of getting facilities into compliance,” she said. “But we need a system that ensures they operate safely, and some facilities may not have a culture that allows us to trust them with our lives.”

It remains unclear whether any single agency will produce a full public account of what went wrong.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has opened a criminal investigation, spokesperson Kimberly Edds confirmed. Prosecutors sent letters to GKN instructing the company not to destroy or alter evidence.

The office is gathering information through an anonymous tip line about the chemical release, the operation of the facility and the maintenance of the tanks and related systems.

California law makes it a crime to knowingly or negligently handle or store hazardous waste in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of fire, explosion, serious injury or death. Edds declined to say which specific areas of law investigators are examining.

In a similar 2024 case, Alameda County prosecutors charged a scrap metal company after a fire exposed years of alleged hazardous materials violations. Prosecutors later dropped the case, saying they could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

On the regulatory side, no agency is responsible for issuing one comprehensive report on the Garden Grove incident. Instead, each agency involved in the emergency will prepare its own findings and release them according to its own policies and timeline, said Brian Yau, a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Authority.

Yau said hazardous materials officials, air quality regulators, environmental officials and the company were developing a cleanup plan for the site. On Friday, the fire authority transferred oversight of cleanup and remediation to the county health agency, fire authority spokesperson Greg Barta said.

Asked whether he was concerned about industrial facilities operating near heavily populated neighborhoods, Newsom praised local and state emergency responders and said the state is reviewing the plant’s safety history. He also acknowledged the difficulty of addressing industrial sites embedded in urban areas.

“When it comes to industrial facilities in and around urban centers,” Newsom said at a Thursday news conference, “that is a more complex geographic issue.”

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat, said legislation will be proposed in response to the narrowly avoided disaster.

Williams, of California Communities Against Toxics, said the emergency should prompt a broader review of California’s rules for hazardous industrial sites — not only at GKN, but at every facility storing chemicals that fall outside the state’s most rigorous oversight programs.

“Everyone wants to get back to normal as quickly as possible because people’s nerves are frayed, and the way to calm down is to go home, sit on the couch and hug your cat,” Williams said. “But in a situation like this, where such a serious incident occurred, it is critical to make sure the safety systems that failed are not the only ones at risk.”

Original source: CalMatters

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The crisis unfolded at GKN Aerospace, a facility in Orange County that produces cockpit windows and shields for military aircraft. As the tank overheated, officials feared it could rupture and release a toxic chemical cloud over surrounding neighborhoods. A failed cooling-system valve complicated the response, and crews used drones to check the tank’s temperature from outside the danger zone. Emergency teams also deployed an unmanned ground monitor — a portable water cannon — to spray the side of the tank in an effort to cool it.

At the height of the emergency, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office sent more than 700 people to Garden Grove to assist with the response. The danger eased only after the tank cracked enough to relieve pressure without triggering a chemical explosion. Evacuation orders were lifted by Tuesday night, but the incident left residents, advocates and regulators searching for answers.

The near-catastrophe exposed gaps in several layers of oversight that state and local agencies have not fully addressed. Air quality regulators had flagged compliance problems at the facility years before the emergency. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is now investigating whether the company violated any laws. Community advocates and chemical safety experts say residents deserve a clearer accounting of what regulators knew, what safeguards were in place and why the tank came so close to failing.

GKN had been working to resolve environmental compliance notices as regulators and local planners considered an expansion of the plant that would increase its capacity to manufacture parts for F-35 military fighter jets.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District inspected GKN three times over the past decade. For much of that period, the facility was classified as a “minor source” of emissions under the district’s permitting program, meaning regulators were not required to inspect it frequently.

That limited oversight may have contributed to what records show became a years-long compliance problem. Regulators said those violations were not tied to the storage tank involved in the emergency, which contained methyl methacrylate.

In 2020, GKN voluntarily reported certain issues that prompted South Coast air quality regulators to inspect the facility and review its records. The district’s investigation found the company had failed to follow multiple rules dating back to 2017. According to regulatory reports, the plant, located less than a mile from homes and schools, had not maintained required emissions records, had operated new equipment without proper permits and had used equipment that did not match descriptions in its existing permits.

The air district did not issue a formal notice of violation until April 2021. A settlement was not signed until late 2024, when GKN agreed to pay more than $900,000. The company did not admit liability, and the agreement resolved 14 alleged violations.

The South Coast district now classifies GKN as a “major source” of emissions, a designation that brings annual inspections. A district spokesperson said the company has applied for a more comprehensive permit at regulators’ direction.

For residents and community advocates, the timeline has deepened frustration.

“That delay and the fact that GKN has operated practically with impunity has caused tens of thousands of Garden Grove residents to pay the price,” said Tracy La, executive director of VietRISE, a nonprofit that supports Vietnamese and immigrant communities in Orange County.

La said evacuees faced costs for temporary housing, medication replacements, transportation and other expenses after being forced from their homes.

“It is frustrating that regular people constantly have to bear the burden when government officials are unwilling to hold powerful, wealthy corporations accountable,” she said.

Garden Grove is part of Little Saigon, home to one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the country, including many immigrants and refugees from the Vietnam War.

Some residents know methyl methacrylate not as an aerospace chemical, but as a workplace hazard. Lisa Fu, executive director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, said Vietnamese nail salon workers have fought for years to remove the chemical from their workplaces because of concerns about its effects on workers’ lungs, skin and eyes.

California banned methyl methacrylate in nail salons and cosmetology schools in 2015 after workers raised health concerns. Now, Fu said, the same chemical was leaking from a tank only a few miles from Little Saigon. She said members of her organization and neighbors reported bloody noses, itching and the deaths of pet birds.

Air monitors set up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the South Coast air district around the plant recorded pollution levels within normal ranges. But Fu said the gap between official readings and residents’ experiences has contributed to mistrust of regulators.

“At press conferences, you hear that there are no fumes, no vapors, no leaks, no pollution,” Fu said. “They say it is safe. Safe for whom? We believe the community when the stories keep coming in.”

Community advocates are calling on Garden Grove leaders to shut down the facility and adopt a moratorium on military manufacturing facilities and expansions in the city.

GKN’s broader permit application remains under review by the South Coast air district, and the public is expected to have an opportunity to comment. A district spokesperson said the agency had aimed to release the permit for public comment before the end of the year, though the timing could change because of the emergency.

The incident has also raised concerns about a possible gap in chemical safety rules. Methyl methacrylate is a volatile compound widely used in plastic manufacturing. Officials feared that as the liquid overheated, the tank could rupture and spill thousands of gallons of chemicals or explode.

“It’s like a soda can you left in the car in the middle of summer,” said Andrew J. Whelton, a professor of environmental engineering at Purdue University. “The pressure that builds up inside the can exceeds what the metal can handle.”

When the tank began overheating, it triggered a chemical reaction that responders could not stop. Craig Covey, a division chief with the Orange County Fire Authority, said during a May 22 news conference that the reaction had clogged valves crews needed to inject a neutralizing agent.

Despite the danger, methyl methacrylate is not regulated under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program or California’s parallel system, known as CalARP. That means the tank may have been governed by a lower-level hazardous materials program, limiting the tools available to regulators for overseeing how it was stored.

“If you live there, if you’re a neighbor, can you go and see what chemicals they have stored on site?” asked Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. “No, you can’t.”

The federal program has not added reactive chemicals to its list of covered substances, despite recommendations from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical accidents. The Trump administration has proposed eliminating funding for the Chemical Safety Board after October and rolling back 2024 Risk Management Program amendments that had begun expanding chemical safety requirements.

A similar gap exists in California. The California Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that methyl methacrylate is not regulated under the state’s accidental release prevention program.

Orange County health officials said GKN had a hazardous materials business plan, a lower-tier document that lists chemicals stored at a facility, but did not have a risk management plan. The county said CalARP does not apply to the plant because methyl methacrylate is not on the program’s list of regulated chemicals.

CalMatters also asked the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health whether workplace safety rules for high-risk industrial processes applied to the facility, which could have made it subject to accidental release oversight through another process. The facility had undergone multiple occupational safety and health inspections before the tank emergency. Cal/OSHA did not respond to that question before publication.

Williams said chemicals that fall outside federal and state accident prevention programs may also be left out of community emergency planning and drills. That can mean nearby residents do not fully understand the risks they face or how authorities would respond.

GKN did not respond to written questions before deadline. In recent days, the company has thanked the community and emergency responders.

“We recognize that there is still much work to be done,” said Steve Carlin, a senior vice president at GKN who oversees programs at the Garden Grove plant.

Angela Johnson Meszaros, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, said people living near companies such as GKN have reason to believe someone is enforcing safety rules.

When an incident like this occurs, she said, residents are angry because they wonder, “Wait, nobody was paying attention to this and now I’m sleeping on the sidewalk?”

She said the regulatory system is aimed at bringing facilities into compliance, rather than ensuring they are operating safely.

“We have a system built around the idea of getting facilities to comply with regulations,” Johnson Meszaros said. “But we need a system that ensures they operate safely, and some facilities may not have a culture that allows us to trust them with our lives.”

It remains unclear whether any single agency will produce a comprehensive report explaining what went wrong.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has opened a criminal investigation, spokesperson Kimberly Edds confirmed. Prosecutors sent letters to GKN ordering the company not to destroy or alter evidence.

Through an anonymous tip line, the office is seeking information about the chemical release, facility operations and maintenance of the tanks and related systems.

California law makes it a crime to knowingly or negligently handle or store hazardous waste in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of fire, explosion, serious injury or death. Edds declined to specify which parts of the law investigators are examining.

In a similar 2024 case, Alameda County prosecutors charged a scrap metal company after a fire revealed years of hazardous materials violations. Prosecutors later said they could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and dropped it.

On the regulatory side, no one agency is responsible for producing a complete account of the Garden Grove incident. Instead, each agency involved in the emergency will prepare its own findings, which will be released according to its own policies and timelines, said Brian Yau, a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Authority.

Yau said hazardous materials officials, air quality regulators, environmental officials and the company were developing a cleanup plan. On Friday, the Fire Authority transferred oversight of cleanup and remediation to the county health agency, fire spokesperson Greg Barta said.

Asked whether he was concerned about industrial facilities operating near densely populated residential areas, Newsom praised local and state emergency responders and said the state is reviewing the facility’s safety history. He also acknowledged the limits of state action in built-out urban areas.

“When it comes to industrial facilities located in and around urban centers,” Newsom said at a Thursday news conference, “that is a more complicated geographic question.”

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat, said new legislation will be proposed in response to the narrowly avoided disaster.

Williams, of California Communities Against Toxics, said the incident should lead to a broader review of California’s rules for hazardous industrial sites, not only at GKN but at all facilities storing chemicals that fall outside the state’s strictest oversight programs.

“Everyone wants to get back to normal as quickly as possible, because our nerves are frayed, and the way to calm ourselves is to go home, sit on the couch and hug our cat,” Williams said. “But in a situation like this, where such a serious incident occurred, it is critical to make sure the safety systems that failed are not the only ones at risk.”

Original source: CalMatters

The post Chemical Tank Nearly Exploded. Did California Regulators Miss the Warning Signs? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The “Flag for Every Hero” event is slated for 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, beginning with a brief ceremony at the Veterans Memorial Amphitheater in the middle of the cemetery.

“Accomplishing this large feat takes a lot of participation by many people, doing many different things,” Brennan Leininger with nonprofit Honoring Our Fallen said. “Everyone’s involvement is critical to the success of accomplishing this task. The emotional experience that results from participating in this event is what it is all about.”

The flag walks, first organized in 2012, are conducted not only on Memorial Day weekend, but also on Veterans Day. Both were nixed in 2020 because of the COVID lockdowns but returned in 2021 with some restrictions, all of which have since been nullified.

Boy Scouts, police Explorers, Civil Air Patrol cadets, unions and other interested parties from throughout the Inland Empire take part in the walks, which have drawn upwards of 1,500 volunteers in the past.

When the events began in 2012, participants were able to reach only 21,000 graves. In 2014, organizers were able to procure enough flags and enlist a sufficient number of people to plant the Stars and Stripes next to just about all of the roughly 250,000 final resting places of those interred at the cemetery.

Since then, flags have been placed at every grave within about three hours, Leininger said.

The honorably discharged U.S. Air Force serviceman, now a police officer, visited the cemetery in 2011 and was dismayed by how few flags were flying, prompting him to start the placements, with the help of Garden Grove- based Honoring Our Fallen.

Eventually, Leininger’s group combined with Riverside resident Mary Ellen Gruendyke to ensure all graves receive a flag. Gruendyke had contributed money and time to the effort long before 2012.

The 900-acre national cemetery is the fourth-largest of its kind in the nation — and running out of space.

Additional information is available at www.honoringourfallen.org.

The post Volunteers Needed For Memorial Day Flag Placement In Riverside County appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Sex offender Cary Jay Smith

Mr. Smith has left the City of Lake Elsinore. He is still being monitored by Riverside County Sheriff’s Department; however, his final destination has not been released at this time. We will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Sex Offender Released from State Mental Hospital currently in Lake Elsinore, CA.

Cary Jay Smith, 59, was sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino in 1999 on a 72-hour psychiatric hold after his wife provided a psychiatrist with a letter in which Smith described sex acts he wanted to perform on a 7-year-old boy who lived in his Costa Mesa neighborhood.

Since 1999, Smith has continued to be held by the state under a section of the state’s Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) as a result of a series of civil trials which have determined that he presents a “demonstrated danger of inflicting substantial physical harm” to children. Under WIC 5300, Smith is allowed a new trial every six months to demonstrate that he is no longer a danger to society.

During those hearings, Smith has repeatedly testified that he fantasizes about raping and then killing young boys in order to avoid being identified. He claims that he has killed three boys and molested 200. He prefers to go by the name Mr. RTK, which stands for rape, torture, kill.

Psychologists have testified over the years that Smith posed an imminent danger. The state hospital did not renew the 5300 hold against Smith, allowing it to expire on Saturday, July 11, 2020. The Orange County District Attorney urged Governor Newsom to intervene and reinstate the requirement that Smith register as a sex offender. Smith is not on probation or parole and his requirement to register as a sex offender for life was removed by the State in 2005 for reasons that remain unclear.

Following his release from Coalinga State Hospital, Smith returned to the Orange County area, then to Corona, relocating to local motels on a daily basis. The Orange Police Department and Corona Police Department have monitored Smith while he temporarily resided in their cities since his release and have been sharing information to maintain community safety. Deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department are currently monitoring Smith to ensure the safety of our communities. We will continue to do so as long as he is within the County of Riverside. Mr. Smith is not on any form of supervised release or required to register as a sex offender. Smith can move around without restrictions. We will update the community when he leaves.

Over the course of the last year, an unprecedented number of inmates have been released by the State of California. Upwards of 10,000 have already been released, with plans to release 8,000 more by the end of August, according to a July 10th press release by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Law enforcement officials have appealed to the State and the Governor to prevent the mass release of violent inmates and sexual predators, however they have continuously failed to do so.

Please note: the purpose of the release of this information is to allow members of the public to protect themselves and their children from sex offenders. (Penal Code section 290.45 (a)(2)) Any use of this information other than for the stated purpose is unlawful.

Do not contact, confront, or attempt to apprehend Mr. Smith if seen.

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Search: multiple moves around SoCal

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