Aerojet Chino Hills Gallery
The Aerojet Chino Hills facility is 29 miles (45 km) east-southeast of downtown Los Angeles and has been the subject of much heated debate due to the intense contamination left there from Cold War Era activities. This property was the subject of an investigation of EnviroReporter.com's Michael Collins that began in 2000 and continues today.
A year after our investigation first started, Aerojet began to intensify its cleanup activity which is now estimated to cost $46 million. In April 2001, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control sent us a series of photographs of the site cleanup, including Aerojet's accompanying descriptions.
"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," from this area according to the Department of Toxic Substances Control. For forty years, the firm detonated mustard- and tear-gas weapons, exploded depleted uranium-tipped projectiles, and produced a galaxy of bombs and munitions.
The 800-acre facility is operated for over 40 years developing, producing and testing munitions, chemicals and depleted uranium. Aerojet Chino Hills drains to the west down to the Santa Ana River in Orange County and to the east down to the Prado Dam in San Bernadino County.
This includes figures of Aerojet Solid Waste Management Units where dioxin, lead, perchlorate, the incendiary chemicals RDX and HMX, and depleted uranium were remediated.
