2,000 Barrels : All Explosive Waste Gone, SOS Reports

Space Ordnance Systems, a Santa Clarita Valley explosives manufacturer, announced Thursday that it has completed the removal of more than 2,000 barrels of explosive waste that had been stored illegally at its two plants. The company also said it has posted $2.2 million in bonds to clean up soil and ground water at the sites.

SOS, a division of TransTechnology Corp. of Sherman Oaks, was ordered by county and state agencies to dispose of the waste, which it had been accumulating at the plants since 1983 without permits to store such waste. The Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission set a Nov. 30 deadline for the firm to get rid of the wastes or lose its zoning permits.

Other orders required SOS, which makes explosive devices for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense, to come up with a plan to clean up the soil and ground water at its Mint Canyon and Sand Canyon plants.

Consent Decree Announced

Dan McBride, president of TransTechnology, said Thursday that the company met the deadline for removing the waste. He also announced that SOS had posted a bond for the cleanup and signed a consent decree with the California Department of Health Services on the cleanup plan.

McBride said SOS “will expedite water and soil cleanup in all feasible ways and complete the complex operation as soon as possible.”

The announcement said the company shipped some of the waste to a licensed disposal site in South Carolina and chemically neutralized the rest at the plants.

A spokesman for the planning commission said Thursday that he had learned informally that SOS had complied with the orders, but that official confirmation had not been made.

The dumping of explosive wastes at the two plants was discovered in the spring of 1984 when an employee tipped off local authorities.

After an investigation, the state and county also accused SOS of mixing its wastes with water and spraying the tainted liquid on the ground.

Water, Soil Tainted

Studies showed that the soil and underground water near the sites were contaminated.

The planning commission, impatient with lack of progress by the company, this spring threatened to revoke the SOS zoning permits if it did not come up with a plan to clean up the two dump sites and prevent further accumulation of wastes.

At that point, SOS discontinued the process that produced most of the waste-- the manufacture of decoy flares used by military planes against heat-seeking missiles. It also shut down its Mint Canyon facility near Agua Dulce, where most of the flares were made.

After developing ways to recycle the explosive wastes, the company resumed production at the Mint Canyon plant in September.

McBride said SOS has also built containment and treatment facilities at its Sand Canyon plant east of Newhall, where a smaller quantity of the flares is produced. The facilities turn the explosive waste into an inert residue that can be hauled to a licensed disposal site, he said.

Cost of Remedies

A spokeswoman for SOS said the improvements to the two plants and the removal of the waste cost $1 million to $1.25 million.

Before embarking on the recycling plan, SOS had sought approval from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to burn the waste in the desert near Lancaster at far less cost. The company contended that was the only safe way of disposing of the waste.

The AQMD voted 4 to 0 to deny that request.

SOS formerly disposed of its explosive waste at Ft. Irwin in San Bernardino County, but the Army base stopped accepting the waste in 1980. The company later burned some on its property until county fire and air-district officials ordered that practice stopped in 1983. The company then began disposing of the material by submerging it in water and storing it in drums.

The company and three executives still face 87 misdemeanor charges related to the waste storage.