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U.S. EPA ISSUES ORDER AT SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SUPERFUND SITE

Release Date: 11/27/1996
Contact Information: Paula Bruin, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1587

     (San Francisco)--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) today issued an administrative order requiring Lockheed Corp., ITT, and approximately sixty other parties associated with thirty-eight other businesses to conduct groundwater cleanup activities at the San Fernando Valley Superfund sites.

     "Conducting these activities is critical to the cleanup of the San Fernando Valley," said Keith Takata, U.S. EPA's regional Superfund Director. "The order has been issued to those parties who are responsible for most of the groundwater contamination in the Glendale area of the San Fernando Valley.  Our continuing enforcement efforts will ensure that responsible parties foot the bill for the cleanup."

     The order requires the parties to conduct the initial stages of work necessary to build a groundwater treatment plant in the Glendale area of the San Fernando Valley.  The work covered by the order will take 270 days, about nine months, to complete.

     A group of 25 businesses, under an agreement with U.S. EPA, recently completed the design of the treatment plant, which was approved by U.S. EPA on November 11, 1996.  U.S. EPA is issuing the current order because no agreement could be reached with the parties to build and operate the treatment plant.  U.S. EPA has also included additional parties in the order who did not agree to participate in the agreement to perform the design.  After the initial stages of construction are carried out under the order, if no agreement for additional work can be reached, EPA plans to issue further orders as necessary to complete the work.  EPA may also sue to collect costs it would expect to recover in such an agreement.

     U.S. EPA has taken several actions to protect the San Fernando Valley sites since they were placed on the National Priorities List for Superfund cleanup in 1986.  Lockheed Martin  Corp., with U.S. EPA oversight, began operating a treatment plant to clean up the groundwater in the Burbank area in 1996.  The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began operating a similar plant, with EPA's oversight, in the North Hollywood area in 1989.

     The San Fernando Valley Superfund sites were placed on the federal Superfund National Priorities List in 1986 because the groundwater is contaminated by volatile organic compounds.  The NPL is the U.S. EPA's list of hazardous waste sites potentially posing the greatest long-term threat to public health and the environment.  U.S. EPA identifies and ranks NPL sites according to threats to nearby populations through actual or potential contamination of groundwater, surface water or air.

   
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