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EPA updates Jurupa Valley council on Stringfellow Superfund cleanup; 5‑year review due Sept. 30, 2026
Summary
The U.S. EPA told the Jurupa Valley City Council it continues cleanup and monitoring at the Stringfellow Superfund site, highlighted interim remedies and said a five‑year review report on protectiveness will be posted by Sept. 30, 2026. Residents urged protections for remediation infrastructure around Pyrite Street.
The Jurupa Valley City Council on Feb. 19 heard an update from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on cleanup work at the Stringfellow Superfund site and plans for continued monitoring and community engagement.
“Stringfellow is the oldest cleanup within the Pacific Southwest, and the second oldest in the U.S.,” EPA remedial project manager Romy Duarte told the council, summarizing the site’s history of contamination and past interim records of decision used to address urgent threats. Duarte said the agency is currently evaluating perchlorate in Zone 4 and distinguishing site‑related sources from background levels.
Duarte listed recent and ongoing work — soil vapor sampling, groundwater well sampling and well‑abandonment and reinstatement where construction required prior removals — and described technical steps in the Superfund process. “Once completed, we will provide the community with our evaluation of cleanup options or perchlorate in a document called [a] feasibility study,” she said, and added that the agency will follow with a formal record of decision for the full site.
On timing, Duarte gave a specific deadline for the next formal evaluation: “The report summing up the latest 5 year review will be completed and posted online no later than 09/30/2026.”
Members of the public and longtime community interveners urged careful attention to remediation infrastructure. Penny Newman, who has worked on the site for decades, called for institutional protections that keep wells, pipes and remediation wiring intact and suggested expanding state ownership or other protections along Pyrite Street so future development cannot compromise cleanup systems.
Newman asked the council to tie local land‑use planning to the remediation infrastructure: “One of the things we're really looking at that will impact the site is that proposal to develop in the canyon… We are concerned about the development, the building, the construction interfering with this very complex remedial action,” she said.
Duarte said the EPA and state Department of Toxic Substances Control are coordinating with local stakeholders and plan additional community involvement events, including a technical discussion on March 18 at the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.
The presentation and the question‑and‑answer session focused on data and monitoring: Duarte said additional sampling and extended well installations are planned to improve the groundwater picture and that results of recent soil vapor samples south of the 60 Freeway are expected later this year.
The council took no formal action on the presentation; staff and agency representatives said they would continue coordinating community outreach as cleanup planning develops.
