$65 MILLION CLEANUP PLAN BERMITE PROJECT EXPECTED TO TAKE YEARS.

Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - The company weighing whether to buy the defunct Bermite explosives factory estimated it would cost about $65 million to rid the polluted 996-acre site of dozens of poisonous chemicals and unexploded ordnance waste.

At a series of meetings last week, Cherokee Investment Partners, one of the nation's leading remediation firms, told Santa Clarita leaders they would take the most conservative approach possible in cleaning and developing the property, located in the center of the city off Soledad Canyon Road.

``Our motive is to get the site cleaned up as soon as possible, to the highest standard possible,'' said Wayne Dorband, chairman of Denver-based International Risk Group, which will work with Cherokee.

The plan also estimated it would take three or four years to rid the hilly property of the pollution left from decades of munitions manufacturing by several companies.

Cherokee's cleanup plan has been endorsed by several large insurance firms that are expected to provide protection for the North Carolina-based company as well as the city of Santa Clarita, Dorband said.

Earlier estimates of the cleanup pegged the cost at closer to $100 million.

While city officials praised Cherokee's professionalism and expressed confidence in the company's ability to finance and complete the project, several members of the Citizens Advisory Group that keeps tabs on the cleanup said Thursday they were skeptical.

``That will simply not be an adequate amount of money to get the job done,'' said Valerie Thomas, a member of the group and director of the Newhall County Water District.

Based on information gleaned from the state agency overseeing the cleanup, the current owners of the property and contractors that have worked on the site, Cherokee officials believe that the pollution covers 40 to 50 surface acres, which includes about 80 known ``hot spots'' of contamination, Dorband said.

``We have no idea how deep the pollution is,'' Dorband said. ``We know the picture is not complete and that there are gaps.''

Cherokee's first order of business would be to stop the pollution in the area's groundwater from spreading farther, by mopping up hot spots and perhaps drilling several barrier wells, Dorband said.

``We don't want this site contributing to the pollution anymore,'' Dorband said.

Since 1997, five wells have been shut down after the discovery that they contained high levels of perchlorate, a rocket and missile fuel byproduct that has been linked to thyroid disorders.

Cleanup of the already polluted water will take an indefinite period of time, Dorband said.

If the company decides to purchase the property, Cherokee intends to take over former owner Whittaker Corp.'s responsibility to clean up the site, Dorband said.

``While Whittaker will never be off the hook, we want their role to be minimal, because we don't want Whittaker to muck up what Cherokee is doing,'' Dorband said, adding that his company has held informal discussions with the Simi Valley-based firm about a deal that would detail its obligations.

Cherokee is also working to negotiate a voluntary agreement with the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the state agency overseeing the cleanup, that would set a more ``aggressive'' time-line for the cleanup, Dorband said.

Company officials also said they will seek to replace the current development plan, which calls for 2,911 homes, with a more environmentally sensitive design that incorporates the company's remediation blueprint.

For example, Cherokee does not plan to build homes or schools on the most contaminated areas of the site, Dorband said.

In addition, the company will not ask the city to allow it to develop the property in phases, as each is certified as clean by the DTSC. Instead, it plans to clean the entire site before beginning any construction, Dorband said.

That would fulfill a key demand made by Santa Clarita residents and leaders.

The current owner of the beleaguered property, Remediation Financial Inc., bowed out of the project after the Santa Clarita City Council refused to permit phased development. That would have allowed the owner to sell off land as it was cleaned to finance the continued cleanup.

A draft agreement laying out a conceptual land-use development plan for the site is expected to be presented to the City Council at its April 15 study session, Santa Clarita officials said.