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Federal environmental officials have ordered work to begin on a plant to treat ground water in Glendale after a dispute over cost and responsibility threatened to stall the $61.4-million

project. Lockheed, ITT Corp. and Walt Disney Co. are among dozens of firms named by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being partly responsible for decades of industrial solvents

leaking into water underlying a large area of Glendale. The group has tentatively agreed to pay for construction and operation of the treatment facility, but a squabble over who should pay

the lion’s share has threatened to delay the project, EPA officials said. “We’re not happy about having to issue this order, but we have no other choice,” said Marie Rongone, an EPA staff

attorney. The Glendale plant would be the third and final treatment facility in the EPA’s overall plan to clean up contaminated ground water. The businesses had jointly completed design of

the plant Nov. 11. About $4 million has already been spent on design of the facility, to be built on land owned by Glendale near the junction of the Golden State and Glendale freeways. The

EPA order requires the firms to take steps to prepare for plant construction, including selecting a contractor and readying the site for technical work. Construction of the plant is expected

to begin in about nine months, and the facility could be completed within a year after construction begins, Rongone said. The order is enforceable under federal Superfund laws, which give

the EPA authority to seek a federal court order if the responsible companies do not comply. If that occurs, the EPA could do the work itself and then bill the companies for the costs, plus

damages, she said. The businesses were supposed to sign a consent decree, a court-approved and enforceable agreement spelling out how much money each firm would contribute. The cost-sharing

negotiations--conducted confidentially by attorneys for the responsible companies--remain unresolved, largely because of Lockheed’s objections to the amount of money the other firms have

asked it to pay. “While we acknowledge that we have a responsibility in cleaning up this ground water in Glendale, we are disputing the amount,” Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Maureen Curow

said. She said Lockheed remains optimistic that a consent decree can still be reached among the affected firms. MORE TO READ