Doubts Linger Over Risks at Lockheed

A group of 1,300 Burbank residents upset with Lockheed Martin Corp.’s handling of toxic waste will soon get checks from the aerospace giant, thanks to what sources confirmed was a recent $60-million confidential settlement with the company.

But what the residents won’t get is an answer to their most important question: Whether years of operations at Lockheed’s now-defunct Skunk Works plant really left a legacy of health risks.

Lockheed maintains its plant posed no risk to the community. Spokesmen say studies have turned up no evidence of high cancer rates near the site, between Empire Avenue and Victory Boulevard east of Hollywood Way.

Even David Casselman, lawyer for the claimants, acknowledged that “in our society, with so many pollutants in the air and the environment, you can’t say any [health problem] is exclusively related to one thing.”

Dangerous pollutants were released from the site, Casselman said. And some residents near the old plant report they have long felt uneasy about health impacts from living near the facility.

Those who pursued the claim “were primarily concerned about why Lockheed ignored their safety,” Casselman said. “Although relatively few people have serious illnesses at the present time, a concern still exists about what might happen in the future.”

Payments reportedly range from $2,500 to $300,000. The injuries alleged ranged from reduced property values to death. The settlement was reached quietly after more than a year of negotiations and without a lawsuit being filed, sources said.

The Skunk Works, started in the 1920s, was where Lockheed engineers conceived such high-tech planes as the Stealth bomber. The legendary secret facility was phased out beginning in the late ‘80s as Lockheed shifted operations to Palmdale and Georgia, spokeswoman Maureen Curow said. The property, about 103 acres, is now for sale.

Left behind are vast empty lots and darkened buildings--and a considerable toxic mess. The ground water under Burbank remains a federal Superfund site. Its cleanup, now in progress and funded by Lockheed and other companies, will require about 22 years and $150 million in expenses, said David Seter, the EPA’s remedial project manager for the San Fernando Valley Superfund site.

Also, 10 acres of dirt on the site awaits treatment to remove volatile organic compounds, said Alex Carlos, associate engineering geologist with the state Regional Water Quality Control Board. It will take about nine years to remove the contaminants from the soil, and Lockheed is building a $14-million plant to do the job, Curow said.

Casselman said the claimants in the settlement were most worried about past use of chemicals on the site.

They are particularly concerned about a substance called hexavalent chromium that was used in painting processes there, he said. The chemical is called a confirmed cancer-causer by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Lockheed acknowledges it used the chemical, but says it always handled it as the law required.

Another concern is possible long-term effects from solvents that long ago leaked into Burbank’s ground water.

The government only began testing for these solvents, called perchlorethylene and trichlorethelene, in the early ‘80s, Seter said.

The chemicals are still under review as human carcinogens, but perchlorethylene has been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals, another EPA official said.

The testing revealed that a five-mile plume of toxins was spreading in Burbank’s drinking water supply underground. Concentrations of the chemicals were 1,000 times greater than allowable levels in the worst spots, prompting officials to hastily shut down a handful of drinking-water wells.

Burbank no longer draws upon a supply of tainted water, but to what extent residents were exposed to tainted water before the tests were done, or precisely what effects--if any--it could have had on their health, is unknown, Seter said.

All that can be said is “there is no doubt that for a period of time, people were drinking this water,” he said.

Lockheed denies it did anything wrong, and declined to comment in detail on the settlement.

Curow said the sum it will pay is so insignificant that the company is not even required to report it as a charge against quarterly earnings. Insurance and reserves are sufficient to cover all the costs related to the cleanup, she said.