[NYPost] The military aerospace giant at the enter of a looming toxic chemical disaster in Southern California previously paid nearly $910,000 to settle environmental violations tied to the same facility where officials fear an overheated tank could explode as early as Monday morning.
GKN Aerospace — a major supplier of jet engines, landing gear and aircraft components for commercial and military planes — reached the settlement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District in January 2025 over permit violations, missing emissions records and nitrogen oxide issues connected to its Garden Grove plant.
The revelations resurfaced as emergency crews raced against time Sunday to contain a failing storage tank holding roughly 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, a highly toxic and flammable chemical used in plastics manufacturing.
Officials warned the tank could reach a critical threshold temperature of 140F around 10 a.m. Monday — a point where the chemical may begin producing heat faster than firefighters can cool it, dramatically increasing the risk of a catastrophic rupture, toxic vapor release or explosion.
The crisis began Thursday morning when the chemical tank started overheating and venting vapors at the aerospace manufacturing facility.
By Friday, Orange County fire officials said the situation had worsened after a malfunction involving the tank’s pressure-release valve prevented crews from stopping the dangerous reaction.
Evacuation orders rapidly expanded throughout six Orange County cities — Garden Grove, Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Stanton and Westminster — displacing an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 residents.
As conditions inside the tank deteriorated Saturday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to unlock additional state resources and shelter locations.
Emergency officials described the incident as an extremely dangerous “thermal runaway” event, where the chemical generates its own uncontrollable heat inside the pressurized tank.
Under the current response plan, hazmat teams are continuing to monitor temperatures while cooling the container. Officials have acknowledged there is a point where crews may be forced to pull back entirely, leaving the tank to either rupture or explode.
Gov. Gavin Newsom later declared a state of emergency as the evacuation perimeter swelled to nearly 10 square miles, with some reports estimating as many as 79,000 people were forced from their homes amid fears the distressed tank could erupt into a toxic fireball or release dangerous chemical fumes across densely populated neighborhoods.
“This is a very dangerous situation,” Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said Saturday while urging residents still ignoring evacuation orders to leave immediately.
According to the South Coast AQMD, inspectors uncovered multiple violations during a November 2020 inspection at the GKN facility, including absent records involving volatile organic compound emissions and permitting problems.
Public records showed the facility used materials containing hexavalent chromium — a known carcinogen made infamous by the Erin Brockovich contamination case — along with coatings containing toxic air contaminants. Regulators also alleged the plant exceeded facility-wide volatile organic compound emission limits and failed to perform required analyzer tests measuring nitrogen oxide emissions from combustion equipment.
The agency later requested additional operational records and ultimately issued a notice of violation in April 2021.
Regulators said they continued working with GKN in the years afterward to address the permitting concerns and obtain additional documentation.
In March 2025, regulators issued two additional notices to comply requiring the company to produce operating records and submit applications involving equipment registration and ownership changes connected to the facility, according to public records.
As part of the settlement agreement, GKN ultimately paid an estimated civil penalty of nearly $900,000, according to the South Coast AQMD.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health has now also opened an investigation into the ongoing chemical emergency.
GKN’s Garden Grove site has operated since 1993 and employs roughly 540 workers. The facility manufactures cockpit windshields, jet canopies and specialized aviation windows for both civilian and military aircraft, including bullet-resistant glass products.
As evacuation zones expanded, entire neighborhoods across northern Orange County appeared deserted, with police barricades sealing off shopping centers and residential streets. Thousands of displaced residents scrambled to locate hotel rooms or emergency shelter space while carrying pets, luggage and essential belongings out of the danger zone
Trina Nguyen, 26, who lives two blocks from the plant, said finding accommodation became nearly impossible as hotels quickly filled.
“The evacuation has been absolutely terrible because when trying to get a hotel it’s extremely hard,” she said.
“Half the time, none of the hotels will pick up the phone or will leave you on hold for hours on end. A lot of hotels aren’t in the area and so aren’t aware of the situation.”
Nguyen said the crisis raised broader concerns about hazardous industrial sites operating near homes, schools and retirement communities.
“This situation raises more awareness for me of industrial complexes in such high dense areas, especially with a mix of homes and families and schools,” she said.
“There’s three schools in that area and retirement homes too. That’s a terrible place to put anything especially with that type of chemical.”
Another evacuee, Ricardo Munoz, 23, described the unfolding emergency as terrifying.
“It’s in your backyard, it’s in your neighborhood,” he said of the chemical plant. “I don’t understand why they would allow it.”
“It’s part of the industrialization of California that has been going on for years.”
GKN Aerospace did not immediately respond to questions about the prior settlement as the chemical emergency escalated over the weekend.
#7
Wall to wall 24/7 "Breaking News" here in the OC. I'm 9 miles from the site so no major worries.
On another note - there are heaps of these relatively small mom n pop defense contractors throughout the OC. No idea how many have this type of potential exposure vis a vis hazmat storage.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
05/25/2026 10:06 Comments ||
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#8
I doubt the contamination will top the 1960 BOMARC missile fire at McGuire AFB - the only reason they haven't closed it down is the government can't afford the Superfund cleanup costs.
#9
I question the wisdom of allowing a facility like this to operate in one of the most densly populated counties in the state, especially after repeated permit violations. A $900,000 civil penalty doesn't cut it. Gotta wonder if GKN paid somebody even more under the table. They should have been ordered to shut it down, clean it up and leave. Some place out in the desert might be OK.
Lawsuits? Start with the South Coast AQMD and the Garden Grove City Council.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/25/2026 14:20 Comments ||
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#10
It was likely there before and the town of Garden Grove grew up around it. Many Aero-tech industries called LA County home - that where many suburbs (emplyees) grew from. Look at all the oil derricks pre-1950 in LA City/Long Beach?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/25/2026 17:14 Comments ||
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#11
@#10 - Hard to say. Most of the houses nearby are late 50's/early 60's. GKN is in a large industrial area (just over a square mile) surrounded by old residential tracts.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
05/25/2026 19:27 Comments ||
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#12
Look at all the oil derricks pre-1950 in LA City/Long Beach?
They used to have an open tar pit in the middle of LA. At least they finally put a fence around it.
[PM] They've ruined a profitable franchise. Thank Kathleen Kennedy
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/25/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
OK!
So, if the general public's avoidance unsecured, movie theaters and other crowded areas after dark, due to safety/crime issues over the last few years, weren't enough.
Now add the general cost of 2 general seating tickets and having to sit next to who knows what, or what it identifies as. Then add, a tub of popcorn and 2 drinks to it and it already had several strikes against it.
Then add Hollywood & Disney always trying to sneak in Social, Racial, LGBT!, & political agenda issues into the script.
Yeah! I can understand why many are waiting to see what the movie actually has in it before selling out $60+ for a questionable night out.
Then the safe sensible idea, is to wait and save a lot. Since Disney new releases usually are streamed in 3 to 4 months after their initial theatrical release. Just wait and watch it at home on your oversize LCD TV, and save a bundle.
$82 Million Gross / by Average $15 Ticket price = 5.4 Million attended over 3 days.
BTW:
See DARKSKIES for general movie industry numbers.
#2
Disney had a 'toy' market for girls but not one for boys. It understood the return $$$$$$ on merchandizing with theme related offerings. So it bought Star Wars and then turned around and feminized the property killing the entire reason to purchase it. Go woke, go broke.
#3
$80-100 M in first weekend isn't that bad and it has an 89 audience rating from RottonTomato's metrics.
Really not that bad. Last year, Snow White had about $45M in first weekend.
For a real bad first weekend, the 2002 Star Trek Nemesis had about $18M in its first weekend and basically killed the franchise for the big screen.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/25/2026 9:53 Comments ||
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#4
LGBT is all about sexual perverctions, trying to make it a normal part of society when it's not. It's just a bunch of perverts looking for extreme sex. Nothing more and nothing less!
#5
Being a Disney shareholder has got to suck. Unfortunately, I probably own shares that I don’t know about.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/25/2026 11:13 Comments ||
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#6
I went and saw it with my youngest daughter. I give it a 7 out of 10, and can say fairly that it's identifiable as a Star Wars movie, as opposed to some other material that's come out lately.
Of course, with that said I like Jon Favreau's version of the Star Wars universe as first presented in the Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars cartoons. So if anything post George Lucas annoys you, then I suggest skipping it.
Bob Iger's salary (he retired effective Mar 2026) took a him. It was over $100M in 2023 and went down to about $40M in 2025-2026 (salary determined by a lot of variables, one of which is stock price). The new CEO Josh D'Amaro will be starting at a base of $2.5M but with all kinds of incentives (including rewarding him for not quitting) which will likely bump it up to the $$0 to $60 M level.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/25/2026 18:27 Comments ||
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] A man in the US state of Florida found $30,023 in a public restroom at a store and returned it. This was reported on May 24 by The Washington Post, citing a police report.
It says the man who lost his bag of money made the money by selling collectible Pokémon. He planned to use the money for his sister's treatment.
"I thought I was finished," the bag's owner said.
The man who discovered the money didn't claim it and began searching for the bag's owner, the authors explained. They met in the parking lot, and the man returned the bag to its owner. The collector expressed gratitude for the gesture, calling the man who found the dollars his savior.
A similar incident occurred in Moscow in January 2025. A 22-year-old man found 1 million rubles and decided to find the owner. He reported that he brought the money to the police, who were then contacted by an 88-year-old pensioner who had lost his savings. Overjoyed, he gave the man 100,000 rubles, thanking him for his honesty.
[IsraelTimes] The annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, officially begins.
More than 1.5 million pilgrims have arrived in Saudi Arabia from outside the country, Saleh bin Saad Al-Murabba, commander of the Hajj passport forces, said last week. The faithful have been pouring into the country for the Hajj against the backdrop of a tenuous ceasefire in the Iran war and related regional tensions and uncertainty. Islamic Unity™
Typically on the first day, many pilgrims in Mecca converge on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert. Ahead of that, pilgrims have been circling the cube-shaped Kaaba in the Grand Mosque in sweltering temperatures.
#3
Inside Lapland's dramatic high-speed reindeer racing
The Ranniot Reindeer Championships is a traditional Arctic sporting event held in Finnish Lapland. Because jockeys must be light, most competitors are teenagers. The BBC's Rob Bell meets former champion Eemil, who is competing in the fastest racing category.
[JustTheNews] The "psychiatric morbidity" gap between "gender-referred adolescents" and controls, already wide before referral to gender clinics, got bigger after referral, Finnish study finds. Trans activists question methodology, discourage debate.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
05/25/2026 11:01 ||
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Taikonauts is the translated Chinese term for astronauts
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] China launched the Shenzhou-23 manned spacecraft to the Tiangong National Space Station. The China Manned Space Administration (CMSA) announced this on May 24.
China launched the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft with three taikonauts.
The launch took place at 23:08 Beijing time (18:08 Moscow time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
There are three taikonauts on board the spacecraft. The crew commander is 39-year-old Zhu Yanzhu. He is the first Chinese flight engineer to lead a spacecraft crew. This is his second mission on Tiangong. In 2023, he spent five months on the station as part of the Shenzhou-16 crew.
The crew also included pilot Zhang Zhiyuan and payload specialist Li Jiaying. She became the first of China's fourth astronaut team to fly to Tiangong.
According to the CMSA, after entering orbit, the spacecraft successfully approached and docked with the space station. It is also noted that one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members will conduct an experiment involving a year-long stay at the station. Currently, the standard mission duration at the Chinese orbital station is approximately six months.
I guess the new logic on population control/adjustments is:
Why wait for the CCP?
Get it done here, in a nice semi-secure, easy breech-able US Hospital / College lab. Then let the "accident" spread around a few months, before NOV. elections.
So as it stands today we have:
Ebola, Hantavirus, Covid, Measles Spreading, Avian Flu A(H5N5, Monkey Pox, Naegleria fowleri the "brain-eating ameba" , all spreading, and all in the news.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
