The Whittaker Corp. can sue the federal government, a U.S. Appeals court decided earlier this week.

A lawsuit by Whittaker concerning the cleanup of the Whittaker-Bermite munitions site, located in the heart of Santa Clarita, will move back to the U.S. District Court after the company won an appeal asking for the federal government to cover the cost of cleanup operations.

The former munitions manufacturing site has “contamination issues” that are currently being “cleaned up” under the supervision of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control according to the Whittaker-Bermite website. This cleanup effort has been ongoing since the early 1990s, according to officials.

“Perchlorate, one of the primary ingredients in explosives, contaminated the soil and the local water supply wells,” an article by SCVHistory said. “The chemical affects the ability of the thyroid gland to take up iodine, which is needed to make hormones that regulate many body functions after they are released into the blood. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds and depleted uranium were also found on the property.”

After a 2003 lawsuit was filed by the Castaic Lake Water Agency that found the Whittaker Corp. responsible for expenses incurred while removing perchlorate from the wells and groundwater in the area, Whittaker began seeking a way for other costs, not associated with the water cleanup, to be taken up by the federal government.

The corporation sued the federal government for a “cost recovery action” that would shoulder some or all of the payment onto the United States. However, the U.S. District Court ruled that the statute of limitations for the action had passed, since cleanup efforts had begun in the 1980s.

Lawyers for Whittaker appealed the ruling, and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case. On Wednesday, they ruled in favor of the corporation, saying that the lawsuit against the federal government could proceed.

In the meantime, cleanup of the soil at the facility is expected to take up to the end of 2017, and groundwater decontamination could take decades to complete under current estimates, according to officials with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, known as the DTSC.

The lengthy timeframe for cleanup is due to the difficulty of accessing the contaminated water and soil.

“They’ve had hazardous waste in easily accessible areas (that has already been cleaned up),” said DTSC project manager Jose Diaz. “These are a little bit more complex because you’re dealing with things underground.”

A water-treatment plant is currently being built specifically to process out the harmful chemicals from the groundwater. That plant is slated to be operational by the end of this year, and will have a lifespan of approximately 30 years before it must be replaced by an updated facility to continue the cleaning process.

“They are also in the process of constructing a water treatment plant,” said Diaz. “The system will operate for a long time — a minimum of 30 years.”