Decades ago, chemicals from manufacturing plants seeped into groundwater in the San Fernando Valley, contaminating the aquifer. As part of ongoing cleanup efforts, the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced that Honeywell International Inc. has agreed to fund the construction of water treatment facilities in North Hollywood.
The EPA said the facilities will treat groundwater from part of the San Fernando Valley Superfund site, allowing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to use the water as part of its supplies.
The agency stated in its announcement On Tuesday, the agreement was reached after more than a decade of negotiations and that it “resulted from a cooperative process” involving the company, EPA and LADWP.
LADWP had previously announced in 2021 that Honeywell was financing and building treatment facilities to remediate 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 North Hollywood factory known as the Bendix site. Regulators determined that operations at several industrial facilities, including this site, had caused groundwater contamination in part of the Superfund site called the North Hollywood Task Force.
Groundwater in the region is contaminated with harmful chemicals, including trichlorethylene and perchlorethylene.
Under the agreement, contaminated groundwater will be pumped, treated and delivered to LADWP. The purified water will be enough to meet the needs of approximately 144,000 Los Angeles residents, restoring a local source that will help increase local supplies, the EPA said.
Martha Guzman, EPA’s Pacific Southwest regional administrator, said the announcement “marks major progress in cleaning up groundwater in the San Fernando Valley.”
“This is a key step toward reusing the aquifer as a source of drinking water for Los Angeles residents,” Guzman said.
