New Report Finds Carcinogens in Well Water Near Factory

Neighbors of a Santa Clarita Valley munitions plant may have been exposed to cancer-causing chemicals that seeped into the ground water underneath the factory, a federal report has concluded.

The report on the Space Ordnance Systems facility, west of the Antelope Valley Freeway in Sand Canyon, contradicts earlier studies by Los Angeles County and state health authorities. It was prepared by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which is affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Rep. Carlos Moorhead (R-Glendale) last summer requested the report after the family of Robert Hercules charged that pollution from Space Ordnance led to four cancer deaths in the family between 1983 and 1989. Another Sand Canyon resident said an informal survey of neighbors, which she conducted, showed unusually high cancer rates in the community.

The agency’s report, released last week, did not brand the plant a definite threat to public health, but said data from well water samples and computer analysis indicate that hazardous substances migrated off the site and into domestic water supplies. The substances include benzene and trichloroethene, both known carcinogens, the report said.

There is reasonable evidence showing that adverse health effects could result from the pollution by Space Ordnance, said Joseph L. Hughart, an environmental health specialist who prepared the report.

“We do know that some people were exposed to some carcinogens in the ground water,” Hughart said Monday.

The report advised residents living near the plant in Sand and Gorman canyons not to use water from private wells. There are eight private wells in the nearby area.

None of the wells feeds the local public water supply. The Santa Clarita Water Co. gets water from several sources, including other wells in Sand Canyon outside the area cited by the report.

The report also analyzed three studies on the incidence of disease in Sand Canyon, and called those studies inconclusive.

Space Ordnance Systems, formerly a division of TransTechnology Corp., had produced flares and explosives in Sand Canyon since 1967. In March, 1984, law enforcement officers and health officials raided the company’s two plants in Sand Canyon and Mint Canyon and found more than 1,000 barrels of improperly stored hazardous waste.

The company illegally disposed of water tainted by solvents, spraying it from sprinklers and dumping it into creek beds. Space Ordnance paid $300,000 in fines and two company executives served brief jail terms.

Space Ordnance was sold in March to Universal Propulsion Co. of Phoenix and the plant is expected to move to Arizona sometime this year.

A monitoring committee of county and state health officials, Sand Canyon residents and Space Ordnance officials was created in 1985 to oversee the cleanup of the site, which is almost complete. The committee’s studies have repeatedly indicated that pollution from the plant had not entered the local water table.

Members of that committee and officials familiar with the company’s record in Sand Canyon said Monday they were surprised by the federal agency’s report.

“We’re having a hard time with that,” Burl Alison, a TransTechnology vice president said of the report’s findings. “It’s hard for us to understand, with all respect.”

Bill Manetta, president of the Santa Clarita Water Co., agreed.

“It’s surprising to me,” he said of the report. As for the report’s warning on well water, “I guess they want to cover themselves,” he said.

He said he also was surprised by the report’s reference to a well at the Robert Hercules residence. As far as he knew, Manetta said, the family was connected to the public water supply.

The report’s conclusions were based on much of the same data that had been used by earlier researchers. However, different computer models were used in the latest analysis, Hughart said. He was unavailable for comment on why their results differed.

Hercules’ widow, Marilyn, said the reference to the well is incorrect and that the house was on the public water system.

But she said she was pleased that the report challenged the claims of county and state health officials, who said the pollution was confined to the Space Ordnance plant.

“This report . . . absolutely shoots it full of holes,” she said. “What it doesn’t establish is causation.”