NTS MAY OK STATE TESTING OF SCV SITE FIRM HAD REJECTED EPA BID FOR STUDY.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- A defense contractor that for years snubbed attempts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to test its property in the heart of town for contaminants seems to be cooperating with a state regulatory agency.

Calabasas-based National Technical Systems did not respond to another request from the EPA about a month ago, an EPA official said, but the company is hammering out a voluntary investigation plan with a state agency overseeing cleanup of a large polluted site nearby.

Preliminary tests done by the DTSC in 2003 found perchlorate in the soil at NTS but water agencies have said the chemicals have not contaminated public water sources. Perchlorate is a byproduct of rocket fuel that has been linked to thyroid disorders.

``This is an opportunity for NTS to get their site assessed without taking the federal route,'' said Matt Mitguard, project manager for the EPA's Superfund. ``The EPA still reserves the right to continue our involvement more aggressively if NTS does not respond appropriately.''

Sara Amir, chief of cleanup operations in Southern California for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, said the agency believes an agreement will be signed by mid- November.

The NTS property, once home to secret defense testing projects, has since been converted to commercial uses. The company has submitted a workplan and agreed in principle to letting the DTSC oversee an on-site investigation.

In May, the company announced it was selling 120 acres of its 150-acre parcel for $40 million, but the acreage lies in a buffer zone where no testing was done.

The once-remote property, on Centre Pointe Parkway and Golden Valley Road, now sits near the city's Sports Complex and burgeoning Centre Pointe Business Park. NTS property abutted the contaminated Whittaker Bermite site until last year, when Golden Valley Road was built between the two. The DTSC has begun its cleanup of Bermite, where contaminants in the soil and groundwater remain from five decades of weapons manufacturing and testing on the 996-acre site.

Officials for NTS -- which has tested products and components for aerospace, telecommunications and military uses on the site -- rebuffed the EPA's attempts since 2004 to drill wells to find whether perchlorate and other contaminants may have seeped from the site into the groundwater below.

Mitguard said it is possible contamination from Bermite migrated to NTS -- possibly in the groundwater because NTS is downhill from Bermite, and in the soil because the properties are adjacent -- but this would not rule out NTS as a source of contamination.

NTS provides business-to-business services in the aerospace, defense, information-technology and high-technology markets.

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com

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