POLLUTION COSTS FIRM $28 MILLION:

A Connecticut-based company that contaminated California’s San Gabriel Valley groundwater with its metal cleaning and degreasing procedures has agreed to spend $27.8 million on environmental projects and penalties in a Superfund settlement reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, officials said.

Farmington, Conn.-based Carrier Corporation, which manufactures air conditioning and heating units, and its parent company, United Technologies Corp., will spend about $26.5 million to build a groundwater cleanup system that will include the installation of wells to pump out contaminated water and prevent its migration.

They also will build treatment plants to remove contaminants from the groundwater, EPA officials said in a statement. The firms also will spend $468,750 on an environmental project at a former duck farm that overlaps the contamination area.

The EPA listed several sections in the San Gabriel Valley in California as Superfund sites in 1984.