The Boeing Co. has paid $471,000 for violating pollution standards at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory south of Simi Valley, state regulators announced this week.

The penalties were imposed for exceeding limits of chromium, dioxin, lead, mercury and other pollutants in wastewater and storm-water runoff over a period of nearly 18 months ending early last year.

"This nearly half-million dollar penalty is a clear statement that violations of California's clean water laws will not be tolerated and will result in significant penalties," said Deborah Smith, interim executive officer of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

A Boeing spokeswoman said the company paid the fines as calculated but planned to work with the water board to determine "reasonable and effective" ways to comply with requirements in the future.

"We've always maintained they were inappropriately applied and basically unachievable," spokeswoman Blythe Jameson said Wednesday.

She said the company has made every effort to reach the levels set out in a permit issued by the water quality board. The task was exacerbated because a 2005 wildfire burned across 2,000 acres of the 2,850-acre site, she said.

The fines were well above the minimum penalty of $228,000. But Smith called them appropriate for the 79 violations that occurred from fall 2004 to January 2006 in runoff going into Bell Creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River, and the Arroyo Simi.

The aerospace company purchased the former rocket engine and nuclear test site in 1996. The site has been the object of a massive cleanup effort for more than a decade.

Most of the fines — about $235,000 — will be deposited in an account used for environmental cleanups around the state.

An additional $200,000 will pay for a study to determine how trace metals are transported from watersheds to estuaries and assessing their effect on water quality, habitat and aquatic life. The rest will go toward restoration of kelp beds in the Santa Monica Bay and a publication identifying ways to manage storm-water runoff.

Francine Diamond, chairwoman of the water board, said the action shows the agency is meeting its responsibility of enforcing the federal Clean Water Act.

"It is absolutely critical that water quality laws are rigorously followed," she said.