The governor’s office has declared a state of emergency in Kern County tonight as a toxic chemical leak spreads from an abandoned industrial site, threatening a groundwater basin serving 200,000 residents. Sources on the ground confirm that fire crews are battling to contain a plume of hydrogen fluoride gas, a colourless, corrosive compound used in oil refining. The leak was first detected at 3:17 p.m. local time at the shuttered Bakersfield Chemical Plant, a facility that has been idle since 2018 and whose ownership has been traced through a labyrinth of shell companies registered in Delaware and the Cayman Islands.
Department of Toxic Substances Control documents, obtained by this reporter, show that the plant’s last environmental audit in 2020 flagged “multiple failures” in storage tank maintenance. Yet no fines were levied. The company that inherited the site, a holding firm called West Coast Industrial Partners LLC, has no listed phone number and its registered agent is a mailbox in Wilmington, Delaware. The state’s emergency declaration clears the way for federal assistance, but the question remains: who pays for the cleanup when the owner is a ghost?
Firefighters in hazmat suits are now laying foam barriers while air monitoring stations report elevated readings in a two-mile radius. Schools in the area have been closed, and residents are advised to shelter in place. But official briefings have been sparse. A spokesperson for the Kern County Emergency Operations Center said only that the leak is “under control,” a statement contradicted by the presence of a hazmat team from the Environmental Protection Agency. Sources close to the investigation tell me the EPA is preparing to invoke the Clean Water Act, a move that could trigger federal prosecution.
This is not a random accident. Three years ago, I traced a similar leak in Louisiana to a company that had stripped its assets and filed for bankruptcy within weeks of the spill. The pattern is alarmingly familiar. A parent company in Delaware, a limited liability partnership in Texas, and a bankruptcy filing in New York. The system is designed to insulate executives from liability. The only ones left holding the toxic bag are the first responders and the people who live near the fence line.
I have obtained a memorandum from the state attorney general’s office, dated yesterday, which warns that the company behind the Bakersfield plant is “insolvent in practice if not in law.” The memo recommends pursuing individual directors under California’s Hazardous Waste Control Act. But finding those directors will require tracing a web of holding companies that have already begun to dissolve. Time is running out. The leak continues. The groundwater beneath this valley is the lifeblood of the local agriculture industry, and if the contamination reaches the aquifer, the damage will last decades.
Tonight, the governor is calling for calm. But the people of Kern County deserve answers. Who owns this plant? Who hid the maintenance reports? And who will be held accountable when the inevitable lawsuits begin? This story is far from over. I will continue to follow the money and the bodies that follow.
Reporting from Bakersfield, this is Marcus Stone. Send tips to the usual address.
