U.S. EPA orders $60 million groundwater cleanup

Sept. 29 -- In what the U.S. EPA calls one of the largest and most comprehensive superfund groundwater cleanups in California, the agency is ordering a $60 million cleanup of rocket fuel-polluted groundwater at the Aerojet superfund site.

The site, located in Sacramento County, Calif., covers 8,500 acres, and is 15 miles east of the state’s capital. Since 1953, Aerojet and its subsidiaries have manufactured liquid and solid propellant rocket engines for military and commercial applications at the site. Cordova Chemical Company also operated a chemical manufacturing facility at the site between 1974 and 1979, the EPA said.

The agency said that both companies disposed unknown quantities of hazardous waste chemicals and various chemical processing wastes at the site. Some wastes were disposed in surface impoundments, landfills, deep injection wells, leachate fields and some were disposed by open burning, the EPA said.

Aerojet will contain an underground plume that has formed and prevent it from spreading to nearby rivers and streams. Future plans will also treat the groundwater.

"Not only is EPA holding Aerojet accountable for its pollution, but we want to assure local residents that they will have safe drinking water for years to come as the company works to restore the underground aquifer," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA´s regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest, in a statement.

The widespread contamination at the site will require at least five additional cleanup plans for groundwater and soil over the coming decade, the EPA said.

For more information on the site, visit the EPA online.

Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Jeremy Carroll at jcarroll@crain.com or 313-446-6780.

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