Editorial: Questions still linger about plant

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001 | 8:54 a.m.

Government officials and neighborhood residents are wondering why AeroTech, a model rocket plant that had more than 2,500 pounds of ammonium perchlorate, was allowed to operate so close to a residential area. Firefighters believe that on Monday a spark from a manufacturing machine ignited magnesium and ammonium perchlorate, a rocket fuel oxidizer, gutting the building and causing firefighters to evacuate residents who lived within a half-mile radius of the plant.

Ammonium perchlorate is a hazardous material that Las Vegans are all too familiar with. In 1988 there was a terrible explosion at the Pacific Engineering and Production Co., a plant that produced ammonium perchlorate in the southeast part of the valley. Two people died and more than 350 were injured in that blast, which also resulted in more than $70 million in damage, much of it to residential homes in Henderson.

AeroTech is directly across the street from a mobile home park built in 1962, well before AeroTech's arrival more than two decades later. It is bewildering that a plant with so much ammonium perchlorate would be allowed to operate next door to a residential area. It's also troubling to learn that the storage of 2,500 pounds of ammonium perchlorate wasn't enough to require a special permit in a light industrial zone.

Environmental and fire safety officials at the local, state and federal levels need to get together and reassess the regulations and laws that deal with the storage of hazardous materials so close to neighborhoods. The events of Monday suggest that an overhaul may very well be in order to ensure the safety of valley residents. For that matter, why such a review hasn't been done earlier is beyond us.