Aerojet Cleans Up Its Explosive Act

$46 million remediation effort seeks community input

Cal-EPA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control holds public meeting in Chino Hills to detail 10-year effort to clean up 800-acre former munitions site. DTSC Open House today in Chino Hills.

Unexploded ordnance and toxic chemicals scoured from soil at 14-acre “Open Burn/Open Detonation Unit”.

“Over 260,000 cubic yards of soil were re-excavated and re-screened with over 47,000 items and 120,000 pounds of inert fragments recovered,” says DTSC notice of March 26 meeting.

Public comment on closure of OB/OD Unit until April 10.

Facility operated from 1954 to 1995 developing explosives, propellants, chemicals as well as building and packing munitions.

May 2000 LA Weekly investigation first breaks story. “Over the years, perchlorate and other poisonous substances were dumped into a 350,000-gallon polyethylene-lined pond and a 270,000-gallon unlined sludge pit.” OC Weekly cover story expands report.

“Reporter Michael Collins has written extensively about the clean-up, contributing a piece that appeared in the Weekly nearly nine years ago titled ‘Russians, Rockets and the Santa Ana River.,’ the OC Weekly writes March 25. “His reporting, and public outcry, helped prod the state into demanding a more comprehensive cleanup of the polluted site.”

Questions remain about Aerojet groundwater and lack of data.

*EnviroReporter.com requests two Aerojet Chino Hills OB-OD reports and extension of comment period for two additional weeks.

**DTSC sends complete OB-OD reports to EnviroReporter.com to comment on. In-depth responses coming in next few days.