The aerospace and technology company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday for the plant, which is on an island of Loma Linda-owned land in the city of San Bernardino.

Loma Linda's 22,000 water customers now use other, uncontaminated wells, but the site will become the city's primary source, according to Brian Thorne, remediation project lead with Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Propulsion Co., a predecessor to Lockheed Martin, operated the facility during the 1960s and 1970s.

As a result of the operation, the chemicals trichloroethylene and perchlorate leaked into the groundwater in Loma Linda.

Trichloroethylene can cause liver problems and increase the risk of cancer. Perchlorate has been found to interfere with the functioning of the thyroid gland.

The plant will pump and filter 4,800 gallons per minute, which Councilman Ovi Popescu said will give peace of mind.

"This allows us to pump all the water we need, which gives us a tremendous amount of leverage if one of our wells goes down," Popescu said.

The plant, which took about two years to complete, cost Lockheed Martin $624,000. Thorne said he expected the project to be the last of several the company completed since 1997, when it accepted responsibility for some of the contamination in

"Generally, we're just trying to make sure that the water served by the Public Works Department is of the highest quality, and that's what this plant will provide for an indefinite number of years," Thorne said.

ryan.hagen@inlandnewspapers.com, 909-386-3916