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Edwards Air Force Base Superfund

This site is currently on the EPA Superfund National Priorities List and remains under federal cleanup oversight. Most-cited contaminant of concern: Benzene.

Afftc Edwards Afb, Edwards Afb, California · ZIP 93524 · EPA ID CA1570024504

See Kern ContaminantsEquity contextHow we read Superfund data
CLEANUP TIMELINE

Listing-date and cleanup-phase enrichment from EPA's per-site SEMS profile is queued for a follow-up ingest pass. Until then, this section will populate from EPA's published timeline data.

Anomaly engine

Notable Signals

No notable signals at this Superfund site for the current ingest. Cleanup-phase and SEMS-action flags are deferred to a follow-up engineering pass.

Contaminants of concern · per EPA SEMS

What Contaminants Are In Edwards Air Force Base

Each row pairs a contaminant with the medium it was found in (the exposure pathway). Hover any named contaminant for an agency-cited health-risk summary. Cited count = number of SEMS decision records (RODs and related) that name the pair.

ContaminantPathwayCited
BenzeneHealth riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen. Long-term inhalation causes leukemia and bone-marrow disorders. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater4
TrichloroetheneHealth riskTCE. IARC Group 1 carcinogen — kidney cancer; suspected liver cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. EPA MCL 5 µg/L; common DNAPL groundwater plume contaminant. (IARC, EPA, ATSDR)Groundwater4
1,1-DichloroethaneHealth riskSuspected carcinogen (EPA C/likely); CNS depressant. Common at solvent-contaminated sites as a degradation intermediate. (EPA, ATSDR)Groundwater3
1,2-DichloroethaneHealth riskIARC Group 2B possible carcinogen; liver and kidney toxic. EPA MCL 5 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
Chloroethene (Vinyl Chloride)Health riskIARC Group 1 carcinogen — angiosarcoma of the liver. Final TCE/PCE biodegradation product; commonly found in groundwater plumes. EPA MCL 2 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
Cis-1,2-DichloroetheneHealth riskTCE biodegradation intermediate. EPA MCL 70 µg/L; lower toxicity than parent solvents but commonly co-occurs in groundwater plumes. (EPA)Groundwater3
Dichloromethane (Methylene Chloride)Health riskIARC Group 2A probable carcinogen; central-nervous-system depressant; banned for most consumer paint-stripper uses. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
IronSoil3
PerchlorateHealth riskDisrupts thyroid iodide uptake — affects fetal development and infant cognition; rocket-fuel and explosives contaminant. EPA HRL 15 µg/L. (EPA, NRC)Groundwater3
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs)Health riskPCBs. IARC Group 1 carcinogen; immune, reproductive, and neurological effects; bioaccumulate in fish and breast milk. Banned in 1979; persist as legacy contamination. (IARC, EPA)Soil3
TetrachloroetheneHealth riskPCE / 'perc'. IARC Group 2A probable carcinogen; central-nervous-system effects; common dry-cleaning solvent and DNAPL plume contaminant. EPA MCL 5 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater3
1,1-DichloroetheneHealth riskVinylidene chloride; IARC Group 3 (inadequate evidence in humans) but liver toxic in animal studies; common TCE/PCE biodegradation product. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater2
Benzo(B)FluorantheneSoil2
Benzo[A]AnthraceneHealth riskPAH; IARC Group 2B possible carcinogen; common combustion byproduct and creosote constituent. (IARC)Soil2
Benzo[A]PyreneHealth riskPAH; IARC Group 1 carcinogen; the prototypical PAH used to benchmark PAH-mixture cancer risk. EPA MCL 0.2 µg/L. (IARC, EPA)Soil2
CadmiumSoil2
Carbon TetrachlorideHealth riskIARC Group 2B possible carcinogen; liver toxic. EPA MCL 5 µg/L. Banned for most uses since 1986. (IARC, EPA)Groundwater2
Cis-1,2-DichloroetheneHealth riskTCE biodegradation intermediate. EPA MCL 70 µg/L; lower toxicity than parent solvents but commonly co-occurs in groundwater plumes. (EPA)Soil Gas2
Dibenzo(A,H)AnthraceneSoil2
NaphthaleneHealth riskIARC Group 2B possible carcinogen; causes hemolytic anemia, especially in infants. (IARC)Groundwater2
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs)Health riskPCBs. IARC Group 1 carcinogen; immune, reproductive, and neurological effects; bioaccumulate in fish and breast milk. Banned in 1979; persist as legacy contamination. (IARC, EPA)Debris2
Trans-1,2-DichloroetheneHealth riskTCE biodegradation intermediate. EPA MCL 100 µg/L; lower toxicity than parent solvents but commonly co-occurs in groundwater plumes. (EPA)Groundwater2
1,1,1-TrichloroethaneHealth riskMethyl chloroform. CNS depressant; ozone-depleting substance phased out under Montreal Protocol. EPA MCL 200 µg/L. (EPA, ATSDR)Groundwater1
1,1,2,2-TetrachloroethaneGroundwater1
1,1,2-TrichloroethaneGroundwater1
1,1,2-TrichloroethaneSoil1
1,2,3-TrichloropropaneGroundwater1
1,2-DibromoethaneGroundwater1
1,2-DichloropropaneGroundwater1
1,2-Dimethylbenzene (O-Xylene)Free-phase NAPL1

Showing the top 30 pairs by SEMS citation count. 37 additional (contaminant, pathway) pairs are recorded for this site.

Drinking-water linkage · SDWIS

No Groundwater PWSes Serving Communities Within 3 Miles

No SDWIS public water systems drawing groundwater (or mixed sources) serve a community whose centroid sits within 3 miles of this site. Empty results are not a guarantee of non-impact — distance is computed to served-place centroids, and SDWIS does not expose individual wellhead locations.

Methodology: served-city centroid (TIGER 2020) is used as the PWS coordinate. Source-water classification from SDWIS primary_source_code; only groundwater and mixed-source systems are queried. Click any system above for its full SDWIS profile.

Equity context · ACS 2018-2022 block-group demographics

Who Lives Near This Site

Kern County, California (no Census block groups within 1 mile and no host city — falling back to containing county): a population of 906,883. Why we surface this →

POPULATION SHARE
19.3%

Low-income

POPULATION SHARE
68.5%

People of color

POPULATION SHARE
7.9%

Under age 5

POPULATION SHARE
11.3%

Over age 64

Source: Census ACS 2018-2022 (5-year) + USEPA-clone EJ blockgroup stats (raw indicators + EJ disparity mirror). NPL site proximity contributes to the national EJ pattern; indicator-level percentile and disparity scores are surfaced on the county page and the state page.

Source. EPA Superfund Enterprise Management System (SEMS) · retrieved 2026-05-07. SEMS is a federal public-domain dataset under 17 USC §105.

What this is not. We report EPA's published Superfund record — site listing, status, and contaminants of concern as named in EPA's decision documents. We do not perform site visits, independent air or water sampling, or current-state health-risk assessment. NPL listing reflects EPA's Hazard Ranking Score at a point in time; it does not by itself describe present-day exposure.