{"id":9546,"date":"2026-07-18T12:12:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T07:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=9546"},"modified":"2026-07-18T12:12:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T07:12:29","slug":"orange-county-demands-4-million-from-gkn-aerospace-after-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=9546","title":{"rendered":"Orange County demands $4 million from GKN Aerospace after crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/c61e26c\/2147483647\/strip\/false\/crop\/3867x2877+0+0\/resize\/1500x1116!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F23%2Fbe%2F231311e34b8abd7f7888a4a74313%2F1556217-me-chemical-spill-klb-377.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-element=\"story-body\" data-subscriber-content=\"\">\n<p>Orange County is demanding that GKN Aerospace, the company whose Garden Grove facility sparked a chemical crisis that prompted wide evacuations across six cities, pay more than $4 million to cover costs stemming from the emergency. <\/p>\n<p>The multimillion-dollar bill is meant to reimburse the county for costs incurred while dealing with the incident, which forced about 50,000 <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-05-21\/residents-evacuated-toxic-leak-garden-grove-aerospace-company\">residents to flee<\/a> as firefighters warned that a 7,000-gallon volatile chemical tank was at risk of exploding or causing a major spill.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter sent Friday demanding payment, county attorneys called <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-06-27\/oc-begins-hazardous-waste-cleanup-at-garden-grove-gkn-aerospace-site\">the May 21 incident<\/a> a \u201ccatastrophic failure\u201d of the company\u2019s chemical storage tank cooling system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis incident was clearly not an unforeseeable accident as GKN has a well-documented history of regulatory violations at the site dating back over a decade,\u201d states the letter, which was obtained by The Times. <\/p>\n<p>The company, according to county attorneys, faced California Division of Occupational Safety and Health citations and more than $900,000 in fines from the South Coast Air Quality Management District for past offenses.<\/p>\n<p>GKN Aerospace officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. <\/p>\n<p>In May, a pressurized tank of methyl methacrylate began to fail at the company\u2019s facility in Garden Grove. The chemical inside the tank continued to dangerously heat, and the cooling system at the facility was unable to reduce the temperature. <\/p>\n<p>A crack was found in the tank, and fire officials said it was at risk of either leaking or exploding as internal pressure continued to build.<\/p>\n<p>The incident has already prompted several inquiries, including by federal authorities. In June, the FBI <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2026-06-10\/fbi-serves-search-warrant-at-garden-grove-chemical-plant\">served warrants at the facility<\/a>. GKN officials at the time said they were cooperating with the investigation. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe blame for this disaster lies solely with GKN and the county should not be bearing the brunt of these expenses,\u201d Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen said in a statement. <\/p>\n<p>The letter to the company included an itemized list of costs incurred by county agencies during the emergency, including $2.7 million by the Orange County Sheriff\u2019s Department, more than $233,000 by the county executive office and $195,000 by the county\u2019s Health Care Agency. It also included $500,000 of discretionary funds that supervisors allocated to assist affected residents.<\/p>\n<p>Additional expenses incurred by the Orange County Fire Authority \u2014 estimated at $2.8 million \u2014 were not included in the $4-million total.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe county works hard to stay in excellent fiscal shape and now we have 10 agencies with huge expenses along with OC Fire Authority,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cWe need reimbursement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GKN had previously pledged more than $3 million to nonprofits, including the OC Community Resilience Fund launched by the United Way, to help residents and business owners. <\/p>\n<p>But in the letter to GKN executives, the county argued that the donation did not absolve the company of liability or of costs incurred by taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe County demands immediate financial accountability to mitigate the impact caused to the County\u2019s public emergency resources,\u201d the letter states. <\/p>\n<p>In the letter, county attorneys also requested that the company maintain all records, materials and physical evidence related to the incident because of possible future litigation. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Orange County is demanding that GKN Aerospace, the company whose Garden Grove facility sparked a chemical crisis that prompted wide evacuations across six cities, pay more than $4 million to cover costs stemming from the emergency. The multimillion-dollar bill is meant to reimburse the county for costs incurred while dealing with the incident, which forced&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/dd01372\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3867x2030+0+423\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F23%2Fbe%2F231311e34b8abd7f7888a4a74313%2F1556217-me-chemical-spill-klb-377.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}