Troubled Defense Firm Will Move to Arizona

Space Ordnance Systems, the troubled Santa Clarita Valley defense contractor that was convicted of illegally dumping toxic chemicals, has been sold to an Arizona firm and will relocate to Phoenix sometime this year.

Officials of TransTechnology Corp., the parent company of SOS, traced the firm’s decline to the discovery of tainted soil and water at two plants in 1984.

Disclosures of the dumping caused annual revenues to fall from $30 million in 1984 to $9 million today, said Burl Alison, a TransTechnology vice president. The company, which once employed 400, now has 67 workers.