Decades ago, chemicals from manufacturing plants seeped into the groundwater in the San Fernando Valley, contaminating the aquifer. As part of ongoing cleanup efforts, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has announced that the company Honeywell International Inc. has agreed to pay for building water treatment facilities in North Hollywood.
The EPA said the facilities will treat groundwater in a portion of the San Fernando Valley Superfund site, enabling the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to use the water as part of its supplies.
The agency said in its announcement Tuesday that the agreement was reached after more than a decade of negotiations and that it “resulted from a cooperative process” involving the company, the EPA and LADWP.
LADWP had previously announced in 2021 that Honeywell was funding and building treatment facilities to clean up groundwater in the San Fernando Valley.
According to the EPA, Honeywell’s predecessors manufactured aircraft parts and other industrial equipment starting in the 1940s at a facility in North Hollywood known as the Bendix site. Regulators determined that operations at several industrial plants, including that site, caused the contamination of groundwater in a part of the Superfund site called the North Hollywood Operable Unit.
The groundwater in the area is contaminated with harmful chemicals including trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene.
Under the agreement, contaminated groundwater will be pumped, treated and delivered to LADWP. The purified water will be enough to meet the needs of about 144,000 L.A. residents, restoring a local source that will help boost local supplies, the EPA said.
Martha Guzman, the EPA’s Pacific Southwest regional administrator, said the announcement “marks major progress on the cleanup of groundwater in the San Fernando Valley.”
“This is a key step towards returning the aquifer to use as a drinking water source for the people of Los Angeles,” Guzman said.