LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal regulators ordered two aerospace companies to complete more than $21 million in cleanup work at a contaminated groundwater site near Los Angeles, according to a report.
The order Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ends two years of negotiations with Honeywell International and Lockheed Martin, the Daily News reported.
Both firms agreed to expand groundwater treatment and do more contamination studies at the 20-square-mile (50-square-kilometer) Superfund site encompassing parts of Burbank and North Hollywood. Superfund sites are those that have been significantly contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as candidates for cleanup.
Airplanes and other machinery were built there during the last century. Chemicals used as industrial solvents were found in the water supplies in 1980.
Lockheed and Honeywell said in separate statements that they will work with regulators to fulfill their obligations.
Since 1989, roughly $250 million has been spent in the building and operating of Superfund remedies by a number of responsible parties, said Caleb Shaffer, the EPA’s section chief for Superfund Region 9. The remedies have resulted in the removal of more than 6,000 pounds of harmful volatile organic compounds at the site as well as the treatment of over 10 billion gallons of groundwater.
Because the pollution reached the groundwater and was defused over the years within a large area, the remedy is going to have to operate for “decades and decades,” Shaffer said.
Lockheed and Honeywell make up two of the larger parties that the EPA has worked with that are responsible for the contamination. Shaffer said they have both stepped up in good faith to address the issue.
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Information from: (Los Angeles) Daily News, http://www.dailynews.com
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