The two sites are the Stringfellow acid pits near Riverside, about 90 miles east of Downtown LA, and the Casmalia Resources Facility in Santa Barbara County, about 100 miles to the north. The two dumps are "California's highest-priority cleanup sites," Gov. Gray Davis said in announcing the settlement.

Terms call for the state to reimburse the US Environmental Protection Agency $99.4 million to clean up Stringfellow and $15 million to clean up Casmalia. Stringfellow is an unlined rock quarry that was used from the 1950s to 1972 as a toxic waste dump by dozens of Southland manufacturers, including many of its giant aerospace and chemical companies. As Stringfellow filled up, the state started transporting some of the poisonous waste to Casmalia.

Acid from Stringfellow eventually contaminated the water in nearby Glen Avon, a blue-collar bedroom community not far from the dump. Glen Avon residents, some of whom said the contamination had turned their town into the "Love Canal of the West," later sued the state and companies that had once used the dump and won a $100-million judgment several years ago.