Residents impacted by the chemical tank that nearly exploded in Garden Grove could get some compensation from GKN Aerospace, the company who owns the tank.
According to GKN, the proposed program would make submitting claims accessible and efficient, including providing instructions in multiple languages.
A news release sent out this week by Garden Grove city spokesman Johnathan Garcia states that the company is evaluating a potential claims program but that additional details, such as eligibility requirements and any instructions on how to submit claims, have not been released.
“Our community should not bear the financial burden of this incident,” said Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein in the news release. “Providing compensation to people impacted by this incident is the right thing to do, but any claims program does not represent the full measure of accountability we expect from GKN.”
GKN Aerospace officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
It all comes months after city leaders from Garden Grove and Westminster demanded compensation for residents who were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses after GKN’s chemical tank nearly exploded.
At one point, roughly 50,000 residents were evacuated throughout Garden Grove, Stanton, Westminster, Buena Park, Anaheim and Cypress – with Stanton being hit with the most evacuations.
The emergency eventually ended shortly after Memorial Day when OC Fire Authority crews were able to locate a crack in the tank, which allowed the chemical to stabilize – avoiding a massive explosion.
[Read: Evacuations End in Garden Grove Chemical Tank Emergency]
Since then, a $3 million relief fund was created for impacted residents, but the application process was closed due to the high volume of people applying.
OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who represents the area, also allocated $500,000 in discretionary funds to the relief efforts – a cost she’s publicly said GKN Aerospace should reimburse.
On Tuesday, Garden Grove City Council members heard from many residents demanding that GKN aerospace compensate all residents and that the company be removed from the city entirely.
One resident spoke of the dangers of the chemicals inside the tank, stating that surrounding community members could get respiratory illness from the chemicals evaporating in the air, leading to a greater burden on city-wide health services.
“My proposal as a response to this environmental disaster would be for GKN Aerospace to compensate citizens who were forced to evacuate, pay for all healthcare needs that result from this incident and remove the facility from the city so that future incidents cannot happen again,” said Zuri Rashad, a Ph. D. candidate in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Irvine.
“The existence of this military contractor in Garden Grove is a persistent danger to both our residents here and our neighbors abroad and we should not continue allowing weapons of war to be manufactured in our name.”
Many people called on the city council to implement a moratorium on GKN and any other company like it to prevent another chemical crisis from happening again in the city.
“We demand the city council to: one, make GKN pay reparations to impacted community members for all the damage, health impacts, inconvenience and fear inflicted. Two, implement a moratorium now to prevent any expansions or any facilities like GKN. Three, shut down GKN so that there will never be a chemical crisis in the community again,” said speaker Mary Nguyen.
Nguyen is with the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, a grassroots organization working closely with the Vietnamese population in Garden Grove affected by the chemical crisis.
Others criticized council members for not having the incident on the agenda after not having a meeting for seven weeks while council members in neighboring Stanton have the chemical tank issue as a standing item on their agenda.
Garden Grove council members voted to put the incident on the agenda for discussion at the next meeting.
Councilwoman Yesenia Muneton expressed distaste for the announcement of a potential claims program from GKN, stating that this could give residents false hope.
Councilmember Joe DoVinh said the city effectively already has a moratorium on the company, explaining how they have not been manufacturing products using Methyl Methacrylate – or MMA – the toxic chemical used to help manufacture plastics and resins that nearly caused the tank to explode when safety valves failed.
“If you think we took a month-long break, you’re wrong. We’ve been working the whole time. The staff has been working overtime since May, since the incident, and June and they begged us for reprieve. They asked us to give them some time to get caught up on their over-work and their overtime and their overload,” DoVinh said.
“You think somebody else is gonna sit here where Joe DoVinh sits and write the history of Garden Grove better than me, gonna fight harder than me,” DoVinh said. “But you’re not gonna find one, and I’m fighting really hard.”
Sara Leon is a Voice of OC intern from Cal State Fullerton. You can reach her at sleon7903@gmail.com.
