Why this matters
Community members have been living, working and shopping amid the ongoing contamination. Some have complained for years. Some are unaware of it.
At home and in the grocery store — that’s where two cancer-causing chemicals have been afflicting the Chollas Creek community in San Diego for years.
And it’s not over yet.
In February, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control ordered Magellan Aerospace and Market Creek Plaza to clean up a contamination of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene (called TCE and PCE) in an area off of Euclid Avenue, south of Highway 94.
The state order described “an imminent and/or substantial endangerment” to public health and to the environment.
The highly toxic chemicals are used in aerospace manufacturing and have been detected on a 7-acre parcel that includes restaurants, offices and businesses including a Food 4 Less, as well as in some homes at the 149-unit Euclid Terrace apartment complex.
The area is the former site of the Fleet Aerospace Langley Facility, which closed in 1997, and at the time reported no contamination after six years of cleanup supervised by the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health.
But two decades later, chemicals are seeping up from the earth in one of south San Diego’s few and highly-frequented grocery stores in a neighborhood that is ethnically diverse and historically underserved.
With scant options, community members have been living, working and shopping amid the ongoing contamination. Some have complained for years. Some aren’t even aware of the problem though a contamination warning is posted by the grocery store’s doors.
“That’s one of the few real grocery stores in our whole community,” said Saige Gonzales Walding, chair of the Chollas Valley Community Planning Group. “It’s not right what’s happening.”
Testing in August 2025 revealed TCE indoor air measurements in the store to be almost two times higher than U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urgent response action levels for commercial air quality assuming an 8-hour work day.
Separate testing in the nearby apartments in January 2026 revealed a number more than eight times higher than EPA urgent response action levels for residential air.
Testing will continue. According to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control order, tests from January 2026 reveal that the contamination extends beyond its current footprint, “to the south and southwest of the parcel,” and that further testing will be needed to determine “the full extent of contamination.”
The order said that ground water in the area has not been tested and that there is a “potential that ground water beneath the site may be impacted with PCE and TCE.”
PCE can cause cancer of the liver, bladder and kidney as well as multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. TCE causes reproductive toxicity, including congenital birth defects, spontaneous abortions, small birth weights and a low sperm count in men.
Over the last two years, several residents of the Euclid Terrace apartments have been moved out of units registering alarming levels of the toxins and into vacant units. Some say they have doubts that where they currently reside is free of the chemical. They say apartments next to them have tested positive for the chemical while theirs did not.
The chemicals migrate upwards in a gaseous form.
Euclid Terrace residents like Charles Brown point in frustration to signs posted on the property warning residents that they are at risk of exposure to chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects. Brown had to move units because of the contamination.
“I feel like if I had been living north of El Cajon Boulevard when those signs came out, they would have moved us immediately,” he said.
Elizabeth Leslie-Gassaway, a spokesperson for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, said that apartment units’ differing results arise from “differences in air circulation such as the use of, or lack of, HVAC systems, open/closed windows and/or doors, and differences in the size and location of foundation cracks and/or utility pipe penetrations.”
Market Creek Plaza and Euclid Terrace management have been working with state regulators to reduce contamination.
Tracy Craig, a spokesperson for Market Creek Plaza, said her team’s mitigation plan has been able to reduce TCE concentrations by 40-80 percent.
State regulators said Euclid Terrace has reduced indoor TCE air contamination in most units by 90-99 percent, and that the next phase of testing will be to assess soil vapor and design a “full-scale” cleanup plan.
Regulators say improvements have been made but work remains.
Neither Magellan Aerospace nor the owner of Euclid Terrace, Kurt Baranski, have responded to requests by inewsource for interviews.
Meanwhile, Terri Altoreoli, who lives above evacuated units that remain empty, says she is afraid the chemical will make its way into upstairs units including her own.
“They’re kind of sitting on a time bomb,” she said.
“Who knows how long it would be before it travels up there?”
Responsibility and mitigation
Soil and air contamination on the Chollas Creek site dates back several decades, and numerous parties are trying to address it now.
In an order issued earlier this year, state regulators named Magellan Aerospace and Market Creek Plaza as respondents, making them financially responsible for the cleanup.
Fleet Aerospace restructured in 1995 after a series of unprofitable long-term contracts, becoming Magellan Aerospace. Market Creek Plaza has owned the land since 2000.
Fleet Aerospace operated the Langley facility from 1953-1997, producing and assembling metallic parts, using the chemicals that serve as metal degreasers.
The San Diego County Department of Environmental Health oversaw a cleanup of the site from 1990-1996, after which it determined the task accomplished, but it also stated that more work would be required if new contamination were found.
Fleet Aerospace demolished the facility in 1999 and sold the property to Market Creek Plaza.
Market Creek Plaza was planned and designed through a partnership with residents and the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, a nonprofit aimed at developing projects envisioned by the community. A survey process identified the need for a cultural and business hub anchored by a grocery store.
The state order says that plaza management discovered the contamination after conducting indoor air and soil vapor tests in 2019 and 2020. Market Creek Plaza said an environmental consultant found it “as part of due diligence on a potential property transaction for a neighboring property” and notified plaza management.
In 2023, several years later, plaza management contacted state regulators and voluntarily entered into an agreement to address the issue.
Craig, the spokesperson for Market Creek Plaza attributes the three-year gap to a change of chief operating officer that took place after the issue was identified as well as “coordinating access to conduct indoor-air testing, determining the appropriate regulatory agency to oversee the work, and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Craig said the company has spent more than $2 million “addressing contamination it did not cause, with a focus on protecting public health, keeping the Plaza operating and ensuring that the party responsible is held accountable.”
She said work including installing more than 40 air-treatment units, sealing cracks in the building slab and adding carbon filtration to the HVAC system has reduced chemical concentrations by 40-80 percent.
She also said that the company is designing a sub-slab depressurization system which will prevent vapors from entering the building and that pilot testing suggests the solution will be effective.
“The work is not finished, which is why monitoring and mitigation continue under DTSC oversight,” she said.
A spokesperson for Food 4 Less said the company is taking “all appropriate precautions” and is working with Market Creek Plaza to “ensure full compliance with DTSC requirements.”
Despite numerous followup emails, the spokesperson did not say whether the company supplied protective equipment for employees to wear in the store or whether it has funded medical screening for employees to assess exposure to the chemicals.
Neither were explicitly required by state regulators.
Leslie-Gassaway, the Department of Toxic Substances Control spokesperson, said that if people have concerns about their health, they should contact their health care provider.
Some individuals who spoke to inewsource on a condition of anonymity said that it is a challenge for them to meet the costs of specialized health screening.
‘It’s just never-ending’
On a scorching recent August afternoon, residents of Euclid Terrace said it was a struggle to keep their houses cool and their power bills affordable.
Residents said they are concerned about their health, their ability to pay for tests to see if the contamination is affecting them, and worry the problem is far from over and may get worse before it gets better. Some say the cost of running an air purifier isn’t in their budget.
Some, understanding their fears are unconfirmed suspicions, also worry that deaths of neighbors could be tied to the contamination, particularly given that many have lived in the complex for numerous years.
“Before we got the notice, the people who lived on the end down there, he had a heart attack and died,” Altoreoli said.
“A lot of people have died right here up in these apartments,” Brown said.
He told the the story of one neighbor who stopped appearing in front of her apartment where he would see her regularly.
“So I went and I knocked on the door again, the dog barking, nobody ever came to the door. I find out a couple days later she was in there dead.”
Brown said that he struggles with respiratory problems. Over 30 years he has been dealing with AIDS and his doctor said that his underlying conditions make dealing with the toxins that much harder.
TCE weakens the immune systems of adults and children.
State regulators say that responsible parties have been on track with the mitigation efforts outlined in the February order. They say the residents’ apartments currently show numbers below health screening levels “in most recent sampling data.”
They also say further testing needs to be done.
Regulators say they monitor air contamination levels in Market Creek Plaza on a quarterly basis. They say TCE concentrations have been reduced “but further reductions are necessary.”
Meanwhile, locals here go about their lives, some aware of the problem and fearful of future health impacts and some unaware altogether. Many have little choice but to walk past warning signs at their home or on the only grocery store in their neighborhood.
Marry Young, a member of the Chollas Valley Community Planning Group, said not even the word resilience can describe what the black and brown communities of south San Diego continue to bear.
“It is just never-ending,” Young said.
Brown said that living with contamination has almost become normalized in this part of San Diego.
“The thing that gets me, you go down there to the Food 4 Less and you go shopping, and don’t seem like nothing’s wrong.”
