Palo Alto considers tighter rules on hazardous materials

Seeking to calm fears in the Barron Park neighborhood about toxic materials from a nearby plating shop flowing onto residents’ properties, Palo Alto officials will consider on Monday ways to limit the threat, including tightening up zoning regulations and asking the company to move its operations elsewhere.

Communications and Power Industries, Inc., which specializes in microwave and radio-frequency equipment, has been stirring anxieties in Barron Park since February 2006, when residents at Chimalus Drive smelled noxious odors that later turned out to be nitric acid. In March 2008, the company raised more red flags when it released into its rear driveway about 70 gallons of solutions that contained hydrochloric acid. Two months later, it accidentally spilled about 50 gallons of wastewater containing copper and nickel in to Matadero Creek.

Though there hadn’t been any accidents over the past three years, its operations continue to worry Barron Park residents, several of whom addressed the City Council at a meeting last month.

While the plate shop has been running at the Barron Park location for decades, it was substantially upgraded in 2006, when the company moved some of its operations from San Carlos to Palo Alto. After Barron Park residents expressed concern about toxic chemicals, the city commissioned an amortization study to determine how long it would take for CPI to phase out its plating-shop operation and still recoup its investments in the facility, according to a new report from Planning Director Curtis Williams.

The city’s consultant, CB Richard Ellis Consulting, determined last year that a reasonable timeframe for the phase-out would be about 20 years from the date the most significant improvements were made to the site. Because the facility was built in 2006, that study would support an action by the city 14 years from now that would limit the company’s ability to store hazardous materials at the site. This period, CBRE wrote in its report, “allows CPI to fully utilize its equipment while adequately preparing for a relocation of the plate shop either at the existing site or at a new location altogether.”

At the same time, Palo Alto officials are weighing other options, including changing the zoning code to “better define the levels of hazardous materials use and storage for plating shops and similar industrial processes and appropriate separation from residential areas,” Williams wrote. The ordinance would also “provide for amortization periods accordingly.” Another possible zone change is simply prohibiting plating shops or facilities that use similar hazardous materials within 300 feet of residential areas.

According to the CBRE report, the buildings that house the CPI facility at 811 Hansen Way were among the first constructed in Stanford Research Park. The building that contains the plating operation was built around 1957 and was initially occupied by Varian Associates. CPI succeeded Varian’s electron device business. Its current operation includes chemicals such as potassium cyanide, which is stored in a secure storage area outside. It also includes nitric acid, sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid, all of which are stored in tanks inside the building.

While the city is considering amortization as an option, CPI has been reluctant so far to take that route. Williams wrote that staff “expects CPI to take the position that amortization is unwarranted at this time.

“Staff also anticipates CPI to take a different perspective on appropriate amortization methodology and to contend that a longer period is appropriate should amortization occur,” Williams wrote.