Orange County supervisor talks about Garden Grove chemical crisis recovery

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]There is of course still many questions as you heard about the possible long-term effects, the accountability, and what recovery really looks like here moving forward.

[00:00:07]>> To try to help us understand what's next, we're joined by Orange County Supervisor Vicente Senino. Thank you so much for being here this morning. We really appreciate it.

[00:00:15]>> Good to be here with you.

[00:00:16]>> So, a lot of people we've talked to say they're obviously still nervous about air quality and possible exposure to this chemical. What are you telling people who are worried about their health and their safety at this point?

[00:00:27]Well, the public should understand that um you know the concern continues. So there are still uh the public agencies that are there that present um air quality management district uh those testing the water quality uh so there you know hasn't been any letup on the oversight and monitoring of the conditions of the site.

[00:00:47]>> Yeah. And of course officials are saying that a failure in the tank's cooling system is what may have caused this entire situation. So what kind of investigation is now underway into how this happened? And you do hear residents saying, "Why was a facility like this put in a residential area in the first place?" How do you address that?

[00:01:02]>> So, great questions. is I think that, you know, the uh Orange County Fire Authority will be the lead agency to make sure uh they find in the aftermath what failed and what caused this um you know, this tank to to fail and and and so I think now going back and looking at what the land use policy is to allow uh heavy industrial manufacturing plants like this uh really close to incompatible uses which are residences and parks and schools. So that is probably because a lot of older cities didn't have the um the foresight to make sure that there are uh distances and buffers between both of these incompatible uses. You can't have uh people and sensitive receptors right up against uh heavy manufacturing.

[00:01:46]>> You know, I think about the timing of all this. It's Memorial Day weekend. Uh hotels were sold out. I I I just did a quick check in the area in the San Diego area. It was like $400 to $800 if you could even find a hotel room. Businesses and residents obviously feeling the financial burden of the evacuation, especially given the timing. How can they get help and what resources is the county now providing them?

[00:02:08]>> Yeah, this weekend was sort of a a blessing or a curse. People had some time off. Luckily, it wasn't during the week when people had to go to work for the most part, but yes, it was an impact and it it was very invasive on people's lives. I think what we've been trying to make sure we uh inform those who were impacted is to save your invoices and receipts for any costs that were expended uh both at um the fire authority and the uh Orange County uh emergency operations center. There will be a claims form for those who have had expenses that were the result of this uh crisis. I think businesses that were also impacted uh we're you know really glad that there are emer emergency orders uh from the local state and federal level uh that will trigger uh as soon as businesses you know I think the threshold is 10 uh the small business administration will start receiving uh claims forms from them because they had to shut down their businesses and it was probably a busy weekend for them to do uh sales.

[00:03:02]>> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the financial losses of course people concerned about that. the investigation ongoing. Is there anything that's not happening now that you feel like needs to be happening in the aftermath of this crisis?

[00:03:13]>> Well, just I think you know one thing that we have to admonish everybody is just to be careful. There still is an evacuation area uh with a 300 ft perimeter. It's much tighter. It's just to the businesses adjacent to the site.

[00:03:25]But um I think people just out of out of an abundance of caution should stay as far away as possible just to make sure nothing happens. Everything is being tested. the water quality, air quality, but uh nonetheless, we never know with uh with incidents like this uh you know some aftermath.

[00:03:42]>> Absolutely. They need to heed of course the directions u from officials like you. So, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

[00:03:48]>> Of course.