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SACRAMENTO — Polluted groundwater caused when a Sacramento County company dumped contaminants into wells and landfills can be cleaned, according to a new plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

The catch: It could take 240 years. 

The plan will be subject to a public hearing on Thursday. The EPA wants to hire contractors to take water out of the ground, treat it, and then dump it into a tributary of the American River. 

“We’ve been working on this plan for a number of years,” said Charles Berry, the EPA’s manager of the Aerojet site that was placed on the Superfund cleanup list in 1983. Aerojet began making propellants for rocket engines in Rancho Cordova in 1953. Contamination from the solvents and other chemicals dumped into wells and landfills has spread at least one mile west of the Aerojet site. The pollution is 2,000 times more than what the EPA considers safe. 

Thirteen wells near the groundwater have been closed. Aerojet spend $52.7 million on the cleanup if the EPA plan is approved. 

Once work starts, the EPA expects full cleanup of the groundwater in 240 years – longer than the company predicts, said Rosemary Younts, a spokeswoman for GenCorp Inc., Aerojet’s parent company. 

Aerojet wants the EPA to approve another cleanup plan that would cost about $6.2 million less and require less construction near company property.