OWNER CLEANS PLANT SITE\Whittaker Corp. hopes to break ground on development by 1998.

Byline: Sherry Joe Crosby Daily News Staff Writer

On the map, the dotted lines marking private roads have such names as Photoflash, Rocket and Phosphorous. They hark to the days when the 996 acres in the heart of what is now Santa Clarita was the Bermite Munitions Factory.

The decline in the defense industry closed the plant in the mid-1980s. Now, property owner Whittaker Corp. of Simi Valley is implementing an ambitious plan to transform the site into a community of 2,911 homes.

Called Porta Bella, the community will offer a business park and a main street area that will feature shops, restaurants and cafes. Plans call for 1,244 single-family homes and 1,667 condominiums.

Before the first homes can be built, however, the California Environmental Protection Agency must declare the site free of toxic materials - a process that could take years and cost more than $1 million.

Northholme Partners, which is developing the site with Whittaker, hopes to begin building by 1998. Environmental consultants hired by Whittaker believe they can meet that deadline.

"I think it's possible," said Barbara Mickelson, president of Acton-Mickelson Environmental, a Sacramento-area firm performing the cleanup. "We're pretty fast, and we're moving pretty aggressively."

Since 1987, Whittaker has cleaned 13 of 14 sites identified as areas where hazardous waste had been treated, stored or discarded. The last site contains trichloroethylene, a compound used as an industrial degreasing solvent.

State EPA officials also have identified 70 additional sites where toxic waste might have been handled, disposed of or buried, and where munitions may have been burned or detonated.

The property, south of Soledad Canyon Road and east of San Fernando and Bouquet Canyon Road, has been the site of explosives since the Los Angeles Powder Co. bought the site in 1934. From 1936 to 1942, Halifax Explosives Co. made munitions, followed by E.P. Halliburton, an oil-field company which owned the site for less than a year. From 1942 to 1967, Bermite Powder Co. made explosives before selling it to Whittaker Corp., an aerospace and telecommunications company, which closed the plant in 1987.

Some nearby residents worry that the developers will do a poor job in their haste to begin construction by 1998.

"I'd be a little skeptical," said Carl Kanowsky, a resident of Circle J Ranch, south of the site. "I'd want to see good hard evidence that it's cleaned up."

Mickelson said a faster pace doesn't necessarily mean a shoddy job. The consultant is accelerating the cleanup pace by simultaneously completing various tasks.

"It's a pretty fast implementation, and we're on schedule now," said Mickelson, who said state EPA officials predict it will take two more years because they anticipate delays.

But state EPA officials said they are not being overly cautious.

"The date is 2001," said Penny Nakashima, project manager for the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the state EPA division overseeing the cleanup. "It's our best estimate of how long it will take to complete the investigation."

The city of Santa Clarita is so worried about future lawsuits concerning the toxic cleanup that it demanded - and received - an indemnity agreement from Whittaker Corp. and Northholme Partners.

The agreement protects the city from liability by requiring the developers, and their successors, to pay legal costs should a lawsuit arise.

"We would be insulated from any lawsuit, liability or cost that arises from a lawsuit," said city attorney Carl Newton.

While indemnity agreements are common throughout the city, the presence of toxic chemicals makes such an agreement absolutely critical.

"This is a special situation because of known toxic chemicals," Newton said.

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