Officials Tour SOS Plants, Won’t Discuss Zoning Permits

Los Angeles County zoning officials Thursday toured the manufacturing facilities of Space Ordnance Systems but declined to say if the visit changed their minds about revoking the zoning permits that allow the defense contractor to operate two explosives plants in the Santa Clarita Valley.

“I’m very glad that we’ve been out here to see everything,” said Stanley Gould, chairman of the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission, after the five-member panel completed its tour of the Mint Canyon and Sand Canyon plants. Gould would not discuss his impressions. “When we’re in the middle of a case, we never discuss it,” he said.

The commission took preliminary action last month to revoke the zoning permits of Space Ordnance Systems, which has been accused of violating state and county hazardous waste disposal laws. In the Jan. 24 vote, the commission instructed its staff to prepare documents summarizing the legal and factual grounds for the revocation. The firm also has been sued by several neighboring property owners.

The commissioners earlier said that a final vote on the SOS permits might come this week. But the panel decided last week to tour the plants before taking a final vote, and commissioners said Thursday that the issue may not be on the agenda for another two weeks.

The commissioners, commission staff and a small army of reporters, photographers and SOS officials began the tour near Agua Dulce at the Mint Canyon plant, a complex of low-slung concrete and metal buildings surrounded by wire-topped cyclone fences and ringed by low hills. The visitors, who were outfitted in bright orange, flame-resistant suits, later drove to the Sand Canyon plant in a rugged mountain area east of Canyon Country.

At the plants, the commissioners saw drum storage areas where more than 1,500 containers of hazardous wastes, which are explosive but not highly toxic, have been stored illegally. SOS officials say there has been no way to dispose of the wastes since the military has stopped accepting them and air quality officials stopped the company from burning them on the site.

SOS’s request for a variance to burn the wastes in the desert east of Lancaster is scheduled to be considered at a hearing next Wednesday at South Coast Air Quality Management District offices in El Monte.

SOS, a subsidiary of TransTechnology Corp. of Sherman Oaks, manufactures a variety of devices for the military and the aerospace industry, including explosive parts for pilot ejection systems and flares that draw heat-seeking missiles away from fighter planes.

The company has been under heavy legal fire since last March, when coordinated raids at the two plants resulted in allegations of illegal hazardous waste disposal. County and state officials said they uncovered evidence that chemically contaminated waste water had been released through sprinklers and dumped on the ground and along creekbeds.

Criminal misdemeanor charges have been filed against the company and three of its executives, and some neighbors have filed health and property damage claims alleging pollution of ground water by industrial chemicals.

Noting that both plant sites have been used by other explosives firms, SOS officials have said they are uncertain which of the companies is responsible for ground-water pollution.

Among those on the tour Thursday were Rita Garasi and Jan Heidt, members of a hazardous waste task force appointed by the county. That panel has called on the planning commission to leave the zoning permits intact and allow SOS to fulfill a pledge to clean up chemically tainted soil and ground water.

Most members of the task force said they are afraid that if the zoning permits are revoked, SOS will renege on the costly cleanup, which then could only be completed after lengthy litigation.

Garasi, who lives near the Sand Canyon plant, said she has been convinced by tests on well water that pollution levels are too low to hurt anyone. She said, however, that the problem will increase if more polluted water beneath the plants is allowed to enter drinking water supplies.

“The delay is what’s going to put chemicals into the ground water we’re going to drink,” Garasi said. The commissioners, she said, are “trying to shoot at SOS and they’re hitting us.”

Commissioner George Lefcoe, the most vocal proponent of the permit revocation, has said the action would not shut down the SOS plants. He said appeals by the company could take years and that new permits would be sought in the meantime.