Federal authorities are executing a search warrant at a Southern California facility where fears of a catastrophic explosion over a failing chemical tank led to tens of thousands of people being ordered to evacuate last month, according to federal officials.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the FBI and Environmental Protection Agency are on site Wednesday executing a federal search warrant signed by a judge as part of a federal investigation into the tank incident at GKN Aerospace that prompted a state of emergency in Orange County.
“Obviously, we want to know exactly what happened and determine whether any federal laws were violated, and that’s the purpose of the search today,” Essayli told reporters at the scene of the facility in Garden Grove, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles.
Essayli said chemists and scientists from the EPA have been brought from across the country to collect evidence as part of the probe, including taking soil samples…