Pasadena, Feds Lose Bid to Dismiss Caltech NASA Lab Cleanup Suit

The federal government and Pasadena, Calif., lost a combined bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by California Institute of Technology over the cleanup of a NASA Superfund site.

The US District Court for the District of California said Caltech showed it incurred cleanup costs and alleged sufficient injury to request an injunction prohibiting Pasadena from remediating groundwater contamination from a spacecraft lab the university manages.

Judge André Birotte Jr. wrote Caltech didn’t completely rely on evidence the City of Pasadena presented earlier in state court against the university alleging the lab contaminated local wells. He also said determining whether Caltech’s ...