The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department on April 12 said they reached a negotiated settlement with Unidynamics/Phoenix Inc. and its parent company, Crane Co., to clean up the contaminated property, and to pay $6.7 million in past costs and $500,000 in penalties. In addition, the companies will be required to pay all future investigation, cleanup and oversight expenses.

The settlement also requires the companies to spend $1 million on an environmental project that includes inventorying and assessing as many as 25 possible brownfield sites in the city of Goodyear, the community most impacted by the site contamination.

The penalty results from the companies´ failure to comply with two EPA orders issued in 1990 and 2003 requiring site cleanup, according to the EPA. The companies performed some but not all of the work, and the EPA stepped in to conduct portions of the cleanup.

The Phoenix-Goodyear Airport Area Superfund site was contaminated with trichloroethylene and perchlorate, which entered local water wells. It was added to the federal Superfund list in 1983.

The Unidynamics/Phoenix Inc. facility was located at the north end of the site. From 1963 through 1994, it manufactured defense and aerospace component systems, including pyrotechnics and explosives. The EPA listed the companies as the potentially responsible parties for the northern end of the Superfund site only.

The cleanup of the site has been under way for more than a decade.