Lockheed to Pay Damages to Neighbors, Source Says

In a payout to Burbank residents who claimed health and other problems, the Lockheed Martin Corp. has agreed to $60 million in cash settlements to nearly 1,300 neighbors who lived near the company’s former military airplane manufacturing plant, according to a source close to the negotiations.

Residents near the plant blamed a variety of ailments, including cancer, on chemicals that seeped into the soil and the water around the site during the 63 years that the company built aircraft there, among them the B-1 and the U2 spy plane.

Some residents also contended that the chemical contamination of their neighborhood near Burbank Airport had caused their property values to decline.

The individual cash settlements, which are expected to be sent out within the next two weeks, will range from $2,500 to $300,000. Some of the highest payments will go to surviving family members whose relatives died, said the source, who did not wish to be identified.

An additional $10 million will be paid by the company for long-term medical monitoring and insurance protection for some residents, the source said.

Lockheed officials would not confirm the terms of the settlement, which were reached after more than a year of negotiations without a lawsuit being filed.

“All I can say is I can confirm we have reached a settlement,” said Lockheed spokeswoman Susan Pearce. “I cannot address any of the details because we have a confidentiality agreement on all of the elements.”

In a short statement issued Sunday, the company said: “Lockheed always maintained that its operations in Burbank pose no risk to the community now or in the time we were in operation.”

The ongoing dispute was handled quietly by Lockheed and the lawyers representing residents.

Attorney David Casselman, who represents the residents, said Sunday the agreement was signed more than a month ago.

Maureen Curow, another Lockheed spokeswoman, said Sunday that the 103-acre property is on the market.

*

In order to restore the environmental integrity of the site, Lockheed is proceeding with plans to build a $13.7-million vapor extraction system. This system of wells, pipes and charcoal filters is designed to treat potentially cancer-causing substances in the soil under the site where the B-1 was built, and pump the treated vapors into the air.

Construction on the system should begin next month, Curow said. It is expected the vapor extraction system will take 8 1/2 years to completely clean the soil.

Among the chemicals found in the soil are carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and methylene chloride.

The site is part of a larger Superfund cleanup of ground water, which was tainted primarily by Lockheed and to a lesser extent by a number of other industries. That cleanup has been operating for nearly a year, Curow said.

Lockheed, which opened on the site in the 1920s, began moving its operations away in late 1980s, completely vacating it by the summer of 1994, she said. Some 12,000 company employees were transferred to Lockheed manufacturing plants in Palmdale or Georgia.

Times staff writers Efrain Hernandez and Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.