Toxic Seepage Worries Norco

Dozens of families in one of the fastest-growing pockets of Riverside County have for years questioned whether toxic chemicals from a military contractor’s former facility in Norco are seeping beneath their neighborhoods and causing serious health problems.

After filing lawsuits and lobbying City Hall and Sacramento for help, they now have some definitive answers.

Tests by state environmental officials recently found that high levels of pollution had migrated from beneath Wyle Laboratories’ testing site to the neighboring community, although state officials were careful to say that they had no evidence that the contamination posed a significant health threat.

Still, residents now suing Wyle and a homebuilder said the findings showed the need for more aggressive testing by the state.

“They thought we were crazy, that a bunch of women had gone nuts,” said Pat DuBiel, who moved into her cul-de-sac house next to the testing grounds 19 years ago and has had her thyroid removed to treat a medical condition she believes is linked to the pollution. DuBiel is among the residents suing Wyle.

Officials from El Segundo-based Wyle declined to comment, referring all questions to the state. City officials have said that Wyle has assured them that contamination did not leave the site, and has denied any link with residents’ health problems.

“More needs to be done,” said Norco Mayor Herb Higgins. The state “should have taken a more aggressive position months ago. The contaminants have been proven to [have migrated] off-site. It’s expanding. It’s further now than what they ever anticipated, and they’re still not sure how far the [pollution] goes.”

Hundreds of residents have sued the company and homebuilders who sold houses near the site, and state officials are continuing testing to determine how far the contamination has spread from the lab’s former 430-acre facility.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined last year that the site was so polluted that it was eligible for a spot on the national Superfund list, though the agency declined to list it because the state was overseeing cleanup efforts. In 2003, Wyle signed an order with the state Department of Toxic Substances Control agreeing to find and clean up all contamination from the site, and has spent at least $1 million so far.

“Wyle has taken responsibility for the investigation,” said Peter Garcia, bureau chief in Cypress for the Department of Toxic Substances Control’s site mitigation program.

State health officials said that proving a link between the pollution and illnesses suffered by neighboring residents would be extremely difficult, and an official with the California Cancer Registry said he had found no evidence of a cancer cluster.

“What the real problem is [is that] there’s a disconnect between people’s understanding of what causes human cancers and what the scientific evidence supports,” said John Morgan, an epidemiologist who works for the registry and is based at Loma Linda University Medical Center. “Cancer is more common ... than what people recognize.”

Beginning in 1957, the Norco site was a military testing ground, and the company also worked with aerospace firms and on nuclear research.

On-site pollution, including trichloroethylene ground water levels 128 times the federal drinking-water standard, came to the state’s attention in 1999 when Wyle was testing its land in anticipation of selling the site.

The property was sold in 2002 to the St. Clair Co., which plans to build more than 300 homes there. The Newport Beach-based developer did not return a call seeking comment.

State officials say their findings have shown no imminent health danger to the community, and minimal long-term health concerns.

“It’s not an immediate threat to anybody’s health,” said state toxicologist Dr. Bill Bosan. “Our concern is from the long-term perspective -- that means 30 years of exposure.”

Further testing is planned at Norco High School and Norco Intermediate School, at seven wells within a mile of the site, and at homes several blocks away. There are 7,000 households within a mile of the Wyle Labs site.