LOMITA, Calif. - Recently, some Lomita residents have been thinking twice about the water they drink and the air they breathe. Seth Brownlie is one of them.

“I grew up in Michigan around Flint. So, it definitely gets me thinking of that. I don’t want Lomita to become the situation they are dealing with,” Brownlie said.

That’s probably why he also sticks to bottled water.

Brownlie’s home is near the source of a groundwater and soil vapor contamination site in Torrance that spread east to the City of Lomita. The groundwater that’s contaminated isn’t the same source that the city uses for drinking water. But the odorless soil vapors could impact the air residents breathe in the vicinity of 245th Street to 250th Street, extending to Pennsylvania Avenue.

This area is just a short drive from Brownlie’s home.

“You have to breathe air and if there’s problems with the ground contamination or the vapors and things like that, then it’s definitely concerning,” Brownlie said.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board required the industrial Hi-Shear Corporation to collect more samples and data to understand how far these contaminants have spread.

Here’s what the water board knows so far. 

The contamination stems from high levels of TCE and PCE — two compounds that were used by the Hi-Shear Corporation in the past to degrease metal. Stephen Van Der Hoven is a hydrogeologist consultant for Hi-Shear, he said the contaminants haven’t been used by the corporation in decades.

However, the compounds have contaminated the groundwater flowing toward the City of Lomita, but it’s not the same source as the city’s drinking water. Plus, the water is currently being imported from another area. Officials with the water board said the water is safe to drink.

Officials are also investigating six other industrial sites along Skypark Drive that might have used the same chemicals as a contributing factor. Renee Purdy is an executive officer on the water board. As she described a map of the contamination areas, she explained how there are many unknowns regarding how far the contaminants have spread.

“It’s fairly well known in the area of the site itself but what these dotted lines mean is that we don’t yet know the extent of the contamination laterally into the City of Lomita,” Purdy said. 

Officials believe the source of the contamination is coming from the Hi-Shear site. Hoven said Hi-Shear has removed over 100,000 pounds of contamination from the Torrance site so far and they continue do so.

But the cleanup on-site and in the communities will be ongoing as they continue to negotiate a permit with the City of Lomita to install soil probes and groundwater well monitoring sites throughout the city to understand the depth and distance the contaminants have reached.

“We’re moving forward as quickly as we can. The investigative phase that we are just about to conduct will take about three to four months to complete and then from that, we will then take appropriate actions, in terms of, do we need to do additional investigation? Do we have enough information to now start cleaning up the site? But it’s going to be on the order of years,” Hoven said.

According to the Centers For Disease Control, moderate to large amounts of exposure from TCE could result in dizziness, headaches, coma, and more severely, death. Since these chemicals are travelling as a gas, water board officials said residents in these areas could ventilate their homes as they gather more information on the contamination and assess cleanup sites.

For residents like Brownlie, that could be another three to four months before samples are fully analyzed.

“I think we’ll wait and see how this plays out. I’ll definitely be following it closely. We’ll see what happens,” Brownlie said.

The Hi-Shear corporation and the L.A.Water Board are currently creating a mailing list and fact sheet which will detail the events of the contamination and known impacts to residents living within 500 ft. of the contamination area.

That fact sheet will be made available to residents within the next month.