on the cover / By HSU Investigative Reporting students

Meltdown

The mystery isn’t why the business closed, but why it stayed open for so long.

California health inspector Amir Javed walked into Eureka Ice and Cold Storage in July 2007 to find flaking paint on the floor in the seafood and ice storage rooms. In his Food Activity Compliance Tracking Form, he noted that two large containers were placed along the middle of the wall of the warehouse to capture falling ice from the ceiling. In the bathroom he found “extremely dirty” cardboards that covered the floor. And the toilet was “encrusted with filth and human waste matter,” he wrote.

He noted that a third of the ice in the plant was for party ice that people buy in markets. But the company had failed to conduct a number of bacteriological chemical and physical tests on its finished ice on a regular basis, as required by state drinking water standards. As he noted, a manager at the plant told him that “[t]he firm has never conducted any of the tests listed above on its finished ice in the past.”

In Aug. 2008, another state health inspector, Jon Spencer, visited Eureka Ice. He, too, found that the company had not performed required tests on the finished ice. The roof was still unstable and flaking paint still posed a contamination problem. On the other hand, the bathroom had been renovated. It “was in excellent condition complete with hand washing signs,” Spencer wrote in his report.

The California Department of Health Services wasn’t the only agency concerned about the condition of the plant and how it made, stored and packaged ice. In January 2008, the Humboldt County Environmental Health Division issued Eureka Ice a notice of violation because it lacked a seismic assessment and it stored anhydrous ammonia, a potentially dangerous chemical.

In July 2008, EPA enforcement coordinator Mary Wesling drafted a letter to County Hazardous Materials Unit Supervisor Melissa Martel warning of the potential danger were an earthquake to happen. “Eureka Ice is located only two blocks from Old Town and Downtown Eureka,” she wrote. “An ammonia release is a threat to the surrounding community.”

Anhydrous ammonia is a hazardous chemical used as a coolant in the ice-making process. “Anhydrous” means “without water.” Though stored as a liquid, the chemical turns to a gas when it comes into contact with oxygen. In its gas form, anhydrous ammonia is unstable and seeks water to make it stable.

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