GELFAND’S WORLD – The Garden Grove tank which is leaking something called methyl methacrylate (MMA) is another wakeup call for us regarding the witches’ brew of refinery stuff (along with other industrial hazards) in our area. The sobering fact is that the MMA leak is one of the lesser problems. There could be an explosion, but leakage along the ground would probably not be a mass casualty event.
This comforting statement is not true for other substances in our midst.
A few years ago, there was an explosion at a local refinery that came perilously close to damaging a container of Hydrogen Fluoride (HF). It was right next to a residential neighborhood. The problem with HF – so much worse than MMA – is that it is highly toxic. It will go right through your skin and kill you…