At a town hall Thursday, state regulators said shoppers can continue visiting the Food 4 Less at Market Creek Plaza, even as work to address underground vapor contamination is expected to continue into next year. The meeting, hosted by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson at Lincoln High School, gave Chollas Creek residents a chance to question officials about trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene detected beneath the southeastern San Diego shopping center, according to inewsource.
The questions reflected how recently many residents had learned of the contamination: most attendees told inewsource they had heard about it only in the preceding week or two. Staff for Weber Pierson collected questions about past testing, groundwater sampling, store operations and worker safety. State officials and a Market Creek Plaza representative addressed them at the meeting, the outlet reported.
Chemicals Linked to Cancer and Birth Defects
The chemicals in question, TCE and PCE, are commonly abbreviated versions of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, both tied to serious health risks. PCE exposure can cause cancer of the liver, bladder and kidney, along with multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, per the article. TCE causes reproductive toxicity and has been linked to congenital birth defects, miscarriages, low birth weights and low sperm count in men, the outlet reported.
Those risks are not abstract for the Euclid Terrace apartment complex next door. High levels of TCE soil vapor seeping up from the ground required several residents of the 149-unit complex to be relocated to vacant units within the property over a two-year span, according to inewsource reporting. Some of those relocated residents have voiced worries that their replacement apartments could carry unmeasured vapor intrusion of their own, the outlet noted.
A Site Cleared Decades Ago, Now Under New Scrutiny
The current concern involves a kind of exposure that earlier site reviews did not assess. Ben Stanphill, a Southern California division chief with the Department of Toxic Substances Control, said soil vapor was not typically included in environmental investigations when regulators reviewed the property in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to inewsource. The site was therefore not flagged for retesting on that basis, the report said. TCE screening levels have also fallen over the past 25 years.
The land had been used for industrial operations before its retail redevelopment. Langley used TCE and other chemicals as factory degreasers during construction operations from the 1950s through the 1990s, according to inewsource's earlier reporting. After Fleet Aerospace demolished the former Langley facility in 1999, it sold the property for redevelopment; state regulators had concluded in 1997 that no further investigation or cleanup was needed. The earlier assessments did not evaluate whether soil vapor could migrate into indoor spaces, the outlet reported.
The contamination resurfaced in 2019 and 2020, when an environmental consultant conducted indoor air and soil tests as part of due diligence for a potential land deal on a neighboring property, as reported by inewsource. Market Creek Plaza management reported the discovery to state regulators in 2023 to begin voluntary monitoring, the outlet reported, and the site itself was tested again in 2024 and 2025. Cleanup crews have since removed some soil from the areas with the highest concentrations, though officials say TCE is stable in soil and soil vapor in the presence of oxygen, and that TCE, PCE and cis-1,2-DCE all persist in the environment for a long time.
Regulators Say Store Remains Safe Despite Stable Contamination
At the town hall, Stanphill said TCE concentrations at the site had remained fairly stable for more than 30 years, according to inewsource. The department nevertheless views vapor moving through the ground and into buildings as the more immediate concern. It still plans to test groundwater before the site can be closed out, since TCE can migrate through soil into groundwater over time, the outlet reported.
The department says Food 4 Less is safe for shoppers, including those visiting for one or two hours a week, and considers the store's produce safe, according to inewsource. The agency said it has worked with Kroger to inform employees. Kroger is continuing mitigation efforts to protect workers, shoppers and the community in coordination with the department's environmental compliance arm, the outlet reported.
Tracy Craig, a consultant for Market Creek Plaza, said at the town hall that high contamination levels are not consistently found in the same locations across the site, according to inewsource. Craig said employees are being consulted as Kroger and regulators address the contamination, and that air treatment units in employee break rooms and offices are working as planned. The June 2024 grocery-store test required immediate action, and plaza operators responded with air treatment units and HVAC upgrades, according to Market Creek Plaza Environmental Facts. An August 2025 indoor-air test at Food 4 Less recorded TCE concentrations nearly twice the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's health screening thresholds.
Permanent Fix Still Months Away, Bankruptcy Clouds Funding
Market Creek Plaza LLC is designing a system beneath the Food 4 Less building to prevent vapors from entering indoor air, according to the same environmental facts page. At the town hall, Craig said more data needed to be gathered. U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas has written a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calling for help with mitigation efforts, per inewsource.
Responsibility for the longer-term costs is also uncertain. Magellan Aerospace, Middletown, Inc., which Market Creek Plaza LLC identified in May 2025 as the corporate successor responsible for the historic aerospace operations and reported to regulators under that name, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2026, according to Market Creek Plaza Environmental Facts. In February 2026, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control issued an Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Determination and Order naming Magellan Aerospace and property owner Market Creek Plaza LLC as respondents and requiring them to address soil-vapor and indoor-air hazards.
The contamination sits against a backdrop of tightening federal rules on the chemical at the center of the dispute. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule in December 2024 banning all commercial and consumer uses of TCE, citing chronic exposure risks the agency found to be unreasonable hazards to human health, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
What the Federal Rule Does—and Doesn't Do
The federal TCE rule does not set a cleanup timetable for Chollas Creek. It allows essential laboratory use and proper disposal of TCE wastewater for cleanup projects to continue for 50 years, with worker protections, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
EPA records also describe a separate California remediation effort: at the former Fairchild Semiconductor Superfund Site in San Jose, a 39-well soil-vapor extraction system operated from January 1989 through April 1990 as part of a remedial action, according to an EPA-funded cost and performance report. That past work at a former semiconductor facility is a distinct case, not a cleanup plan or schedule for the Chollas Creek retail plaza.
Community Roots Run Deep at Market Creek Plaza
The plaza itself carries outsized symbolic weight in the neighborhood. Opened in 2001 on a 20-acre brownfield site once known as the four corners of death, Market Creek Plaza was developed with the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation. The project included resident ownership and community involvement, according to the Incourage Community Foundation.
San Diego County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe has emphasized safety, transparency and communication, according to inewsource. The stakes for residents include both the contamination and the availability of food: community planning leaders have noted that Food 4 Less is one of the few full-scale supermarkets serving the Chollas Valley area. Many residents want the store to remain open while seeking faster answers about the ground beneath it, the outlet reported.
