UTC to close rocket plant

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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UTC shutting down its Coyote Valley plant

By Carol Holzgrafe
Morgan Hill Times (CA)
May 25, 2004

After 45 years of testing rocket motors - quite audibly to Morgan Hill
residents - United Technology Corp. will close its Coyote Valley
facility and move operations to Florida.
UTC officials announced they would be closing the solid rocket fuel
plant on Metcalf Road over the course of the next year. Most of UTC?s
600 employees will be offered jobs in Florida where the UTC plant
manufactures liquid rocket fuel, said Julie Anderson, UTC?s manager of communications.

?We are giving all employees the opportunity to transition within the
workforce,? Anderson said.

UTC/Pratt Whitney manufactures rocket motors for Department of Defense
missiles and for NASA?s space shuttles.

Reasons for closing, she said, were several.

?Two incidents with (fire, explosion, injury and one death) in 2003
triggered a good, hard look at our return on investment,? Anderson said. 

...

UTC/Pratt & Whitney is also responsible for introducing perchlorate into
parts of the south San Jose aquifer and has been pumping and treating
the groundwater with perchorate treatment plants for about 15 years. 

UTC?s perchlorate, as far as anyone knows, is not related to the
perchlorate problem in south Morgan Hill and San Martin. That
contamination stemmed from an Olin Corp. highway safety flare plant on
Tennant Avenue.

?The clean up will go on as planned,? Anderson said. ?There are no
intentions to stop.

...

for the entire article, see
http://morganhilltimes.com/news/newsview.asp?c=109083

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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