"This site needs to be fully cleaned up, plain and simple. Valley residents should not have to continue living next to a property that poses real and serious environmental and health risks."
Faith Larson Resident
Winnetka Business Owner
"These property owners need to do the right thing and do a full clean up of this site. Valley residents, families, and small businesses deserve a clean and safe environment."
Roberto Barragan
Homeowner, Northridge
“This facility needs to made safe for future generations to live, work, play, and pray on. The current proposal fails to deliver on that goal.”
Jane Williams
Executive Director, California Communities Against Toxics
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Get the Facts
THE UTC/ROCKETDYNE SITE IS CONTAMINATED WITH CARCINOGENS.
According to a report by the Regional Water Quality Control Board website the 45+ acre site is badly contaminated with Trichloroethylene, Tetrachloroethylene, and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons; all known to cause cancer. Groundwater is very shallow and the site is adjacent to Arroyo Calabasas and Bell Creek.
UTC/ROCKETDYNE MAY BE ALLOWED TO DEVELOP WITHOUT ADEQUATE CLEANUP TO RESIDENTIAL STANDARDS.
They have asked the Regional Water Quality Control Board to allow cleanup only to less protective commercial standards and to delay a full groundwater cleanup until after development starts. This has the potential of exposing the neighboring communities and communities to dangerous toxins. Residents believe additional remediation and sampling of very highly contaminated soil vapors is necessary. We think a groundwater remedy is needed now, and the site must be cleaned to the health protective residential standards consistent with the Warner Center Specific Plan zoning.
THE WARNER CENTER 2035 SPECIFIC PLAN HAS RESIDENTIAL ZONING
Development and land use have already been determined by the city within the Warner 2035 Specific Plan which calls for “a high quality mixed-use district”. That means that it should include residential use. A partial clean up could undermine opportunities to build new, safe, and high quality housing. Regulators must not let UTC/Rocketdyne off the hook to a less health protective commercial only cleanup at this valuable site for housing in the heart of the West Valley.
WEST VALLEY NEIGHBORS, RESIDENTS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS ARE UNITED
A growing alliance of environmental advocates, neighbors, and business owners in the West Valley are coming together to express our concerns over environmental contamination and cleanup at the Rocketdyne site including –neighborhood council members, California Communities Against Toxics, and hundreds of local residents.
News
“State officials say it could take years and millions of dollars to clean up the property, which is polluted with cancer-causing chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), left from decades of rocket testing.”
Jane Williams, the executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said United Technologies, the landowner needs a long-term plan to remediate groundwater underneath the site to protect current and future residents who live nearby. “The groundwater can take centuries to cleanup,” she said. “But development companies get in, develop, get their money and go home. They are not designed to do these long-term cleanups.” But state officials say the polluted groundwater is “fairly deep” to put residents who live near the facility at risk.
Mall of America Owner May Buy Former Rocketdyne Site
The Canadian owner of the Mall of America is negotiating to buy one of the largest redevelopment sites in Los Angeles: the former rocket-engine manufacturing site of Aerojet Rocketdyne, according to CoStar Group. The Woodland Hills property is expected to fetch approximately $150 million, per an anonymous source who was once involved in the deal.
Mall of America owner in talks to buy 47-acre site in the Valley