Updated: Orange County Explosion Fear: Mammoth Toxic Tank Leak in Garden Grove

Update - 3:55 PM Eastern:

We've got a positive update on the story out of Orange County, California, regarding that leaking chemical tank, thankfully:

Officials in Orange County say a major shift in conditions at a Garden Grove chemical facility has significantly reduced the immediate risk of a catastrophic explosion.
In a joint statement from the city of Westminster and the Westminster Police Department, experts described the situation as “critically positive.”
...
“OCFA has reported the tank has cracked and released some pressure, taking away the potential of a catastrophic explosion.
“There is no leak of chemical substance. This is a new positive development and the science experts are still evaluating this,” according to the city and police officials.

RedState will continue to follow the story and add updates as warranted.

Original story:

On Saturday, a leaking chemical tank prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in Orange County, California. The evacuated area encompasses parts of six Los Angeles metro area cities, and the incident may well lead to the tank melting down in a thermal runaway.

A leaking chemical tank at an aerospace firm is going to fail or explode in an “unprecedented” event that saw officials order thousands of Orange County residents to evacuate parts of six cities until it happens, authorities announced Friday afternoon.
“At that point, we know the tank is going into thermal runaway,” Orange County Fire Authority Division Chief Craig Covey said during a news conference Friday. “And we’re going to pull everybody out of the area, make sure it’s safe and let the tank do what it’s going to do.”
The fire authority’s hazardous materials response team began dousing the tanks at a Garden Grove facility Thursday, prompting an initial evacuation order that was lifted later that day. But on Friday morning, officials said a faulty valve and the inability to remove and neutralize the toxic chemical inside the tank had escalated the incident and left them certain that the large tank would, at some point, either fail, leaking thousands of gallons, or explode.

Fortunately it appears that failure, rather than explosion, is the more likely option, although neither is what you would call "good."

The tank, holding about 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of highly toxic methyl methacrylate, was described as being “in crisis” Friday.
“There are literally two options left remaining,” Covey said. “The tank fails and spills a total of about [6,000] to 7,000 gallons of very bad chemicals into the parking lot in that area. Or, two, the tank goes into a thermal runaway and blows up, affecting the tanks around them that have fuel or chemicals in them as well.”

So, what is it in that tank? Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is a clear, colorless, and volatile liquid organic compound. It's used as a primary monomer to make strong polymers, like Plexiglass. It's highly reactive, combustible, and can be explosive. Exposure can lead to skin, eye, and respiratory irritation and allergic reactions. MMA is heavier than air, so it tends to stick close to the ground and pools in low-lying areas.

Nasty stuff.

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On Sunday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Lee Zeldin, appeared on CNN's State of the Union with host Jake Tapper to provide an update on the incident and to describe what the EPA is now doing.

EPA Administrator on California toxic tank crisis: "We're being told the tank will fail." pic.twitter.com/XAjz2wyyKo
— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) May 24, 2026

Jake Tapper: And what can you tell us about efforts to keep that tank from exploding and the air quality in the area where people are complaining they feel sick?
Lee Zeldin (EPA Administrator): The Orange County Fire Authority is the lead agency. You have all levels of government, local, state, federal, working together. EPA has personnel on the ground. Air monitors deployed in the local community. We've been involved with modeling of different scenarios. We're being told the tank will fail. But there are different scenarios as to what that means, the most catastrophic scenario being an explosion that results in other tanks to explode. That's why you see such a big evacuation that's been done in the surrounding areas. I'm being told this morning, the most likely scenario is one of a low volume release, where the local authorities are going to be able to monitor, neutralize and contain the threat. It has been done, I'm told, this morning.
The Orange County Fire Authority is working to keep the temperature of the tank down. That is very important. Keeping it under 85 degrees is key. And right now this isn't an emergency response. This isn't yet an environmental response and the scale of that environmental response will be determined based off what happens when the tank fails.

What's described is about as good a scenario as we can hope for at the moment. Next, likely, will come the "why" of all this, and that should be interesting.

This remains a developing situation. Stay tuned.

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