Health Dangers From Plant Spill Called Minimal

Residents living near a defunct defense plant in Santa Clarita were exposed to toxic chemicals that seeped into the ground water and entered the municipal water supply, but the contamination occurred in amounts that did not pose a significant health threat, a new federal study has concluded.

The chemicals, one a known carcinogen and others that are suspected of causing cancer, were generally found in concentrations below federal safety standards, the report said.

But federal researchers declined to give water tainted by the old Space Ordnance Systems plant a clean bill of health and warned that the presence of some of the chemicals in any amounts could increase the risk of cancer. The report, released last week, labeled the contamination a “public health concern.”

The researchers also recommended that private water wells near the plant should not be used until plant cleanup, now under way, is completed. The report said no affected private wells are in use.

The report was prepared by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an affiliate of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and assessed data collected between 1984 and this year.

A draft of the report was released in May and then revised after researchers received comments from members of the public and officials from Los Angeles County and the state Department of Health Services.

For the most part, the report’s conclusions repeat the findings of the draft, which was assailed by county and state health officials as misleading and inaccurate.

The officials charged, for example, that the report overstated the amounts of trichloroethylene (TCE), a suspected carcinogen, that were found in a well north of the plant.

The report was prompted by the death of Charlotte Hercules Aitkins, who died of leukemia in June, 1989. Aitkins was the fifth member of the Hercules family to die of cancer between 1983 and 1989. The Hercules family lived about 2,000 feet away from the plant and relatives believe the contamination contributed to the deaths.

Marilyn Hercules, the widow of Robert Hercules, a mechanic who died of kidney cancer in February, 1989, said Sunday that the report bolsters her fears and suspicions about the effects of the pollution at the plant.

Although the report fails to say conclusively that the chemicals harmed the nearby community, the report’s suggestion that the chemicals could increase the risk of cancer is, she said, “enough evidence that those chemicals did in fact kill my family.”

She also pointed out that the report discovered that TCE was found in concentrations of 0.6 parts per billion in the tap water of the Hercules home. Such concentrations, however, are legal and below the federal safety level of 5 parts per billion, the report said.

The report’s discussion of TCE, a solvent, has been particularly controversial. The report said that a test of a well used by the Santa Clarita Water Co. showed TCE concentrations of 5.1 parts per billion.

But SOS plant officials, supported by state and county investigators, said that the figure was a simple computing error and that the true finding was 0.5 parts per billion, well under safety standards. Officials from the company that conducted the test of the MacMillan well submitted sworn statements admitting the error.

But the federal agency still cited the higher figure in the final report, saying the protests from the company did not include documentation to prove a mistake had been made.

The federal report is the latest study the defense contractor, which has had a long and troubled history. The firm produced flares and explosives in secluded Sand Canyon, east of the Antelope Valley Freeway, from 1967 to this year, when it was sold to a firm in Phoenix.

The company was convicted of illegally storing and dumping toxic chemicals and two company executives served brief jail terms after law enforcement officers raided SOS and its sister plant in Mint Canyon in Agua Dulce.

A study by state health officials earlier this year concluded that there is no evidence to support allegations that pollutants dumped by the plant contributed to the deaths in the Hercules family.

State health officials are currently conducting yet another study on the company, this one on the incidence of cancer and other diseases in surrounding Sand Canyon.