Rocketdyne Lawsuits Dating Back to March 1997 Settle on First Day of Jury Selection

8-Year-Old Rocketdyne Case Settled
Deal Worked Out Same Day Jury Selection Was To Start
By Kerry Cavanaugh, Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer
21 September 2005 (p.m. release)

After an eight-year legal battle, the Boeing Co. reached a settlement Wednesday with more than 100 neighbors of its Santa Susana Field Lab who said they developed cancer and other illnesses from the rocket-engine manufacturing plant.

Attorneys for Boeing and the plaintiffs were scheduled to begin jury selection Wednesday on the long-awaited trial, but instead spent the day in mediation hammering out a deal to end the personal-injury lawsuits.

Terms of the settlement were not released.

"Plaintiffs and defendants are both satisfied with the settlement and settled these claims to avoid the high costs and delays of litigation," the parties said in an agreed-upon statement read by Boeing spokesman Dan Beck.

The company denies that its operations caused any harm to the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit, initially filed in March 1997, alleged that hazardous and radioactive substances released from Boeing's Rocketdyne plant, which has operated since the 1940s, caused cancers, thyroid and autoimmune disorders and tumors in residents who lived near four rocket facilities on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley.

Experts hired by the plaintiffs said in court documents that they were able to find links between exposure to toxics from the Rocketdyne sites and illnesses among individuals in the community. Many of the residents lived near the Santa Susana Field Lab, where Boeing tested rocket engines and developed nuclear power systems for the space shuttle. In 1959, a nuclear reactor at the lab experienced a partial meltdown, and neighbors have sought answers on how much contamination was released during that incident and in later nuclear and chemical operations.

Elizabeth Crawford with Physicians with Social Responsibility, who was not part of the lawsuit, said she had wanted to see the results of the plaintiff's decade-long investigation aired in a public courtroom.

"If this case is settled, then I would be disappointed because the full extent of the case will never see the light of day."

The case, originally filed in 1997, almost didn't make it to court. One judge threw out most of the claims in 2000, saying the statute of limitations had passed. The court said Daily News reports in 1989, which revealed massive contamination at the lab, and subsequent media reports should have led plaintiffs to file their suits earlier.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling in 2002 and allowed the case to proceed.

The plaintiffs were represented by Cappello & Noel of Santa Barbara and Gancedo & Nieves of Pasadena.

The terms of the settlement are supposed to be kept secret, although the statement said Boeing doesn't expect the settlement to have a "material impact or require any extraordinary action by the company."

Boeing, a publicly traded company, does not have to report the settlement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company sold its Rocketdyne unit to Pratt & Whitney in August, but retained the field lab and all environmental responsibilities from its other sites. Boeing reported $15 billion in revenue early this year and net income of $566 million.

*Please Scroll to Department of Energy Fails EPA's Stringent Rocketdyne Cleanup Standards


City of Los Angeles, 2 Groups to File Suit Over Cleanup of Rocketdyne Land

City contends a federal agency's plan for the old nuclear lab test site near Simi Valley would increase cancer risks for future residents.
*Hotsheets Notes the County of Ventura is not an Island Unto Itself.

By Miguel Bustillo and Amanda Covarrubias
Times Staff Writers
21 October, 2004

Concerned that homes may one day be built on the site of a former nuclear testing laboratory between Simi Valley and Chatsworth, Los Angeles and two environmental groups plan to sue the federal government to force a stricter cleanup of radioactive waste.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office said it had decided to join the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy, which operated the lab, because current cleanup plans could endanger city residents.

"The site is not very far from the Los Angeles city boundaries and contamination knows no borders. We are joining this lawsuit because the Department of Energy has failed in its duty to protect the public," said Assistant City Atty. Cecilia Estolano.

For nearly four decades, U.S. agencies and private contractors conducted nuclear research and tested rockets at the 2,800-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The nuclear research was terminated in 1988, and many of the facilities have since been torn down.

A small nuclear reactor that once helped power the city of Moorpark experienced a partial meltdown in 1959, releasing radioactive contamination. Numerous other pollutants also tainted the soil and groundwater, including the rocket fuel component perchlorate, which has been linked to developmental damage in children.

Now, the Department of Energy, which is responsible for cleaning up the radioactive contamination at the lab, has proposed a cleanup that it says would allow the land to be safely reused for any purpose � including residential development.

Environmental groups, however, argue that the plan would leave behind 99% more radioactive soil than an alternative proposal that the agency rejected, and expose the land's future residents to higher risks of cancer.

The current cleanup plan would cost $85 million, while the more thorough alternative would add $195 million.

The property is owned by Boeing Corp's Rocketdyne division, which has successfully lobbied in recent years to defeat state legislation that would ban housing at the site. Boeing declined to comment on the possibility of a lawsuit.

The suit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Committee to Bridge the Gap and Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo is scheduled to be filed today in San Francisco federal court.

It accuses the Department of Energy of failing to comply with federal environmental laws and seeks to require a more thorough assessment of contamination dangers. It also accuses the department of unlawfully reneging on a 1995 agreement to clean up old nuclear sites consistent with standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program.

Joel Reynolds, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Santa Susana cleanup could set a bad precedent, resulting in reduced standards at more than 100 Department of Energy sites around the country that are contaminated with nuclear waste.

"If they can get away with violating standards at Santa Susana, they will certainly try to do the same elsewhere," Reynolds said.

Department of Energy officials dismiss assertions they have not followed environmental laws, saying they carefully considered alternatives and held months of public hearings. They also dispute claims that they abandoned the agreement to follow EPA Superfund standards.

"We meet the intent" of the EPA Superfund standard, said Mike Lopez of the department's Oakland office, the official in charge of the cleanup plan.

"What we're saying is, we get to the same point," he added.

Under the Department of Energy's proposed cleanup, the remaining radioactive contamination at the Santa Susana site would not exceed 15 millirems above the average amount of so-called background radiation most people are exposed to in daily life. But if exposed to the extra 15 millirems over a lifetime, an additional three out of every 10,000 people would die of cancer, the EPA estimates.

Under EPA guidelines, cleanups should reduce cancer mortality risks to one in every 10,000 people. The EPA has no power to compel its sister agency to do a more thorough cleanup, but has submitted letters criticizing the Department of Energy's cleanup plan as inadequate.

Effects of |Rocketdyne Lab| Accident Argued
Plaintiffs' Experts in Suit Against Rocketdyne Say that a Reactor Meltdown at the Facility in 1959 Likely Contributed to Area Residents' Illnesses.
By Amanda Covarrubias
Times Staff Writer
February 24, 2004

A 1959 nuclear meltdown at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley released far more radiation than was previously known and likely contributed to some area residents developing deadly cancers and other illnesses, according to experts hired by the plaintiffs in a lawsuit pending against the lab's operator.

A representative for Rocketdyne's parent company, Boeing Co., called the experts' findings little more than speculation.

"Their statements add nothing new to the debate and are based on speculative assumptions," said Boeing spokesman Dan Beck. "It's a lot of theory, but there's no scientific evidence of a public health threat or a threat to property as a result of operations at Rocketdyne."

Moreover, Beck said, three cancer studies conducted by the federal government over the last several years found that rates for thyroid cancer among nearby residents were not higher than levels in the general population.

For more than three decades, Rocketdyne conducted nuclear research at the Santa Susana Field Lab on behalf of the federal government. Public disclosure in 1989 of lingering, low-level contamination from past nuclear projects sparked a public furor and prompted Rocketdyne to halt nuclear operations there the following year. Cleanup of contaminated facilities continues to this day.

Eight scientific experts, including two associated with an international energy and environmental watchdog group, submitted their findings on radiation and chemical exposure on Feb. 12 to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles as part of the 6-year-old lawsuit against Boeing. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include more than 120 area residents.

According to declarations filed with the court, the experts concluded that the plaintiffs' exposure to hazardous substances released from Rocketdyne's facilities "in reasonable medical probability, was a substantial factor in contributing to the risk of developing their injuries or cancer."

The experts hired by the Santa Barbara law firm of Cappello & Noel said the plaintiffs were exposed by inhalation to a number of hazardous substances, including hexavalent chromium, radionuclides, trichloroethylene and a "toxic chemical cloud containing multiple human carcinogens" that caused at least 83 plaintiffs to contract cancer.

Another 23 plaintiffs with cancer are suspected of contracting their diseases from exposure to Rocketdyne chemicals, and another 17 do not have cancer but fear they will get it, said attorney Leila Noel. Of those with cancer, many have already died, she said.

The scientists reached their conclusions based on calculations and analysis of 8.5 million pages of documents turned over by Boeing over the last five years. They considered such factors as the number of years a resident lived in the area, weather conditions on a particular day and the types of chemicals that were known to be used at the plant at the time.

Two experts found that the July 1959 meltdown of an experimental breeder reactor released 15 to 260 times more deadly radiation than was released during the 1979 nuclear reactor disaster in Three Mile Island, Pa.

Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear engineer and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md., and Bernd Franke, an expert on nuclear contamination and scientific director of the institute in Heidelberg, Germany, made the conclusions.

"At the time of the meltdown and for decades to follow, defendants successfully covered up the seriousness of the disaster and the impact it had on the residents of the two neighboring valleys," the declaration states. "Only now, during plaintiffs' experts' analysis of the incident, has the truth come to light."

Rocketdyne's 2,700-acre field laboratory, perched on a rugged plateau in the Simi Hills, is best known as a rocket engine test site for the Air Force and NASA.

But from the 1950s through the 1980s, Rocketdyne conducted nuclear research on a portion of the lab site for the government. The work included the operation of small nuclear test reactors and recycling of highly contaminated spent fuel from nuclear fuel rods.

The partial meltdown was not widely publicized until 20 years after the incident. The company later said there had been no danger to the public or workers.

Suit Claims |SSFL| Leak a Cause of Cancers
Rocketdyne Calls Statement 'Junk Science'
By Roberta Freeman
Ventura CountyStar Staff Writer
26 February 2004

Exposure to hazardous substances released by the Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab after a 1959 nuclear accident likely contributed to cancers and other diseases among residents in the Simi and San Fernando valleys, according to scientists hired by the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Boeing.

Eight experts in areas of radioactivity and chemical toxicology filed their findings in U.S. District Court earlier this month as part of a nearly 7-year-old lawsuit that includes a total of 300 plaintiffs, 173 of whom are sick or have already died. The lawsuit is in the pre-trial stages.

The lawsuit alleges that chemical and radioactive contamination from the Field Lab caused the illnesses and deaths. Nearly 20 people in the lawsuit do not have cancer but fear they will get it based on suspected exposure to contamination.

A Boeing official dismissed the findings as speculative, paid for by the plaintiffs' attorneys and not backed by science.

"This adds nothing new to the debate," Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said Wednesday.

There is no scientific evidence that operations at the lab have ever been a threat to public health, he said.

Plaintiff attorney Leila Noel of Santa Barbara said the experts had arrived at their conclusions after examining 8.5 million documents generated since the suit began. Boeing supplied many of the documents, which included diaries of work and testing activity and chemicals used at the site, she said.

"We have literally looked at every single page," Noel said.

Among the findings filed with the court, experts believe that when the experimental nuclear reactor at the lab suffered an accident in 1959, it probably released 15 to 260 times more radiation than the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

Using computer modeling and risk assessment based on records of activity at the site, scientists concluded that exposure to hazardous substances from the lab "in reasonable medical probability, was a substantial factor in contributing to risk of developing plaintiffs' injuries or cancer," according to court documents.

Noel defended the experts' qualifications and the validity of their findings.

"They are not going to put their careers on the line for junk science," Noel said.

In 2000, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled the plaintiffs had not filed in a timely manner, preventing the suit from moving forward.

In November 2002, however, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision. That court's judges cleared the way for 18 of the original 52 plaintiffs, all residents of the Simi or San Fernando valleys, to move ahead with their suits.

The judges did uphold the ruling against 34 of those filing suit, saying they failed to show evidence of why they were filing claims against Boeing.

The remaining plaintiffs have joined in the lawsuit since then.

|Boeing-Rocketdyne Santa Susana| Laboratory Implicated in Illnesses
Plaintiffs' Experts Say Nearby Facility Caused Cancer Cases
By Lisa Mascaro
Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer
Monday, February 23, 2004
Dozens of residents across the San Fernando and Simi valleys developed cancers and other conditions from toxics released at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Lab and other facilities, according to experts hired by plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the company.

According to court documents released Monday, the experts were able to find links between exposure to toxics from Rocketdyne and illness among individuals in the community -- claims the lab's owner, Boeing, steadfastly denies.

"Since 1959, the government and Rocketdyne.... have covered up the fact that the west San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley have been exposed to huge quantities of carcinogenic chemicals and, most difficult for us to fathom ... the government and Rocketdyne basically lied to the public and told the public nothing got off-site," said attorney A. Barry Cappello, whose Santa Barbara-based law firm, Cappello & Noel, represents the plaintiffs.

"Our experts have now been able to sit down and determine how much of an exposure each of our clients had."

A Boeing spokesman said there is absolutely no evidence of any health threat posed by Rocketdyne's operations.

"It's a theory that reaches unsupportable conclusions," said Boeing's Dan Beck, who said the case involved only eight individuals. "They still have not represented any scientific evidence of a public health threat."

The Daily News disclosed in 1989 that nuclear and chemical contamination had been found at the field lab between the San Fernando and Simi valleys, where Rocketdyne conducted nuclear energy and rocket-engine testing for the government for decades. The site is now under a federally mandated environmental cleanup.

A pair of UCLA studies of workers found higher cancer mortality rates among those in some jobs at the lab, and other studies are now trying to determine whether contamination could have made people in the community sick.

Cappello's firm is handling the main case stemming from contamination at the site. The case, filed in 1997 and now heading toward trial in U.S. District Court, involves more than 300 individuals, their families and the estates of those who have since died.

The plaintiffs' team of eight hired experts said releases from the field lab, as well as from Rocketdyne's other two facilities in the West Valley, likely caused the cancers and other injuries among those residents studied.

The experts found links to lung, brain, kidney and bladder cancers, as well as Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but not breast cancer, Cappello said.

"Plaintiffs' exposure to hazardous substances released from Defendants' facilities, in reasonable medical probability, was a substantial factor in contributing to the risk of developing their injuries or cancer," court documents said.

An additional 23 plaintiffs have injuries whose cause could not be confirmed and 17 had fear of cancer because they had been exposed, the documents said.

The plaintiffs lived around the area and inhaled various toxins from 1948 through the mid-1980s, the attorneys said.

The experts pointed to a 1959 "meltdown" of an experimental reactor that released as much as 260 times the amount that escaped during the incident at Three Mile Island, as well as ongoing operations at Rocketdyne's Canoga Park and De Soto Avenue facilities that sent chemicals into the air.

Appeals Court Denies Field Lab Case Review: More Than 300 Cases Qualify for Prosecution
Decision 10 June, 2003
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Boeing Co.'s petitions for rehearing a case in which Simi Valley and San Fernando Valley residents charged the company contaminated neighborhoods surrounding the Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab. (10 June 2003)
Residents claimed the toxic discharge from nuclear and rocket testing facilities at the site caused cancer and other illnesses.
In November, a three-judge panel had reversed a lower court's decision preventing a group of residents from suing Boeing Rocketdyne over radiation exposure that allegedly made them sick.
Boeing then filed a petition for a rehearing and asked for the entire 9th Circuit Court to review the case. The plaintiffs' attorney Barry Cappello said Monday that both requests were denied by the court, which clears the way for a total of approximately 300 cases that will qualify for prosecution.
Boeing spokeswoman Blythe Jameson said it was uncertain whether an appeal would be made to the Supreme Court, "but it is under consideration."

U.S. Court's Ruling Allows Rocketdyne Suits to Continue
From a Times Staff Writer
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
June 24, 2003
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to rehear a case involving claims of contamination by residents living near Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley.
Boeing Co., which owns the Rocketdyne nuclear and rocket-testing laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains, had sought the rehearing after the 9th Circuit issued a similar ruling in November.
Residents claimed, in about 300 separate lawsuits filed against Boeing and Rockwell International Corp., that toxic discharge from the site caused cancer and other illnesses.
In November, the Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that tossed out some of the residents' lawsuits on grounds the statute of limitations had run out.
The decision means that all 300 cases now would proceed to trial, said A. Barry Cappello, a plaintiffs' attorney.

Court Reinstates Suit on Field Lab Contamination
By Jean Guccione
Times Staff Writer

November 28 2002

A federal appellate court reinstated a lawsuit Wednesday against two aerospace companies accused of contaminating the environment around the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Chatsworth and causing neighbors to become sick.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, found that newspaper articles on contamination at the site could not be used to throw out 18 of the 52 claims against Boeing North American and Rockwell International Corp. The remaining claims were rejected for other reasons.

The court ruled that jurors, not judges, should determine as an issue of fact whether the plaintiffs knew or should have known about contamination on and around the lab site within the statutory limitations for filing such a suit.

"None of the publicity from this period suggested that available evidence established contamination from the Rocketdyne facilities as the likely cause, among many possible causes, of public health problems," Judge Richard A. Paez wrote for the majority. "The media reports and expressions of community concern about the contamination were, at best, equivocal about such a link."

The opinion reversed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins. She had ruled the plaintiffs were barred by the one-year statute of limitation from proceeding to trial because they should have suspected earlier that industrial contamination from the test site had made them ill. She based that decision on newspaper articles between 1989 and 1991 on the laboratory and alleged contamination around the site.

Santa Barbara litigator, A. Barry Cappello, who represented the plaintiffs, said the ruling is significant not only for his clients but for California residents who file federal claims against alleged polluters.

Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said company officials were considering whether to appeal.
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times

*Department of Energy Fails EPA's Stringent Rocketdyne Cleanup Standards

EPA Rejects Pleas of Lab Neighbors
Agency reaffirms it will reduce its oversight of environmental cleanup at Rocketdyne facility.
By Gregory W. Griggs
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 12, 2003
Despite pleas from neighbors and activists that they have a "moral authority" to maintain oversight, officials with the federal Environmental Protection Agency said they have neither the money nor the jurisdictional power to direct radiological cleanup operations at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
At a meeting Wednesday night attended by about 50 neighbors of the former nuclear research facility near Simi Valley, EPA officials reiterated their recent announcement that they plan to scale back monitoring of the cleanup, which is scheduled to be completed in 2007. The agency believes cleanup operations are inconsistent with federal environmental regulations and therefore the property is unsuitable for development.
But EPA officials reminded residents that their role has been merely as an oversight panel and that the Department of Energy, which was responsible for nuclear research at the lab, has final regulatory authority.
"We've tried valiantly, given our limited authority � we've done all that we've been asked to do" in terms of offering advice and expert opinions, said Arlene Kabei, associate director of waste management in the San Francisco EPA office. "Over the last 10 years, there has been the expectation that we were going to do something about [the contaminants] and we can't, because we've never had the authority."
The EPA was asked by government officials and neighbors of the lab to independently review the Department of Energy's radiological cleanup and has served as lead agency over the Santa Susana Field Laboratory work group � a citizens panel � since it was formed in 1991.
Despite the EPA's suggestion that the Department of Energy take control of the work group, no Energy Department officials attended a Thursday morning meeting during which the future of the panel was discussed.
"This is indeed a setback, but you have those along the way," said Tom Pfeifer, a spokesman for Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who established the group. "We will continue to work just as hard as we have for the past 13 years to ensure the Santa Susana Field Lab is cleaned up completely."
The EPA's decision to take a less-active role in the cleanup, in part because of budget limitations, was criticized by several of those who attended the work group's meeting Wednesday night.
"I know how frustrating it is, but you can't � leave us in [the Energy Department's] hands," said Oak Park resident Sue Boecker. "This work group is probably the only vehicle we have to get full public information about the problem."
Work group member Dan Hirsch, president of the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap, said he would continue to push to keep the EPA involved as a watchdog over the Department of Energy, which commissioned nuclear research at the lab for decades beginning in the early 1950s.
"EPA is the agency with the moral authority to uphold the environmental laws of this country, and the DOE is a self-regulatory agency that has shown it can't be trusted," Hirsch said, citing a 1959 partial fuel meltdown at Santa Susana that went undisclosed for two decades. "If we lose you, we lose one of the few things that can help protect this community."
Jonathan Parfrey, a work group member and director of the Southern California chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said Thursday that some members were adamant that the lab site never be used for residences.
"For us, it's nonnegotiable. We would never stand for the development of that land for housing," he said. "I can't imagine it being suitable for any human habitation whatsoever."
Energy Department officials told the audience Wednesday that the existing radioactive contamination at the lab posed no threat to workers or nearby communities and that plans to remove about 7,500 cubic meters of soil and debris from the site would leave the land essentially as clean as it would be under the EPA methodology, which calls for up to 407,000 cubic meters of dirt to be removed.
"Over the whole site, the level of risk is close to two in a million" in increased cancer occurrences once the cleanup is completed, said Department of Energy spokesman Roger Gee. That level is practically indistinguishable from the EPA's Superfund risk standard of one in a million, he said.
"We don't disagree on what's safe. We disagree on the process," he said, adding that the department would conduct a final survey of radiological contamination at the site after its cleanup was complete to ensure no problem areas remained.

EPA gives up key role in cleanup of field lab
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 10, 2003 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave up the fight Wednesday for tougher standards for the cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, saying it's powerless to force the U.S. Department of Energy to comply with its stringent decontamination goals.
EPA officials said they would no longer lead the community work group overseeing the controversial cleanup at the Rocketdyne facility in the Simi Hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley.
The announcement, made at the work group's meeting Wednesday night, shocked many activists as well as both California senators and the local congressman who hoped the EPA would push the Department of Energy and Boeing Co. to thoroughly decontaminate the lab.
"You're our only shot to protect public health here," West Hills resident Christina Walsh pleaded with the EPA officials at the meeting.
The two agencies have clashed over the DOE's cleanup plan, which the EPA said would leave too much radiation on the property, making the land unsafe for anything more than limited camping or picnicking.
However, the EPA has no legal authority over the DOE and the environmental agency's comments have done little to alter the DOE's cleanup plans.
"Our job has been to come in and make sure the DOE is cleaning up the site adequately," said Arlene Kabei, associate director of the EPA's Waste Management Division. "We've tried to compel change. It's time people look to responsible parties who have the authority and hold them accountable."
Without the EPA at the helm, the future of the work group and its funding is in limbo. The work group was established to bring all regulatory agencies together and allow the public an opportunity to learn about the cleanup and comment directly to the regulators.
The EPA could attend the group's meetings and offer technical assistance to the community, but only if the often acrimonious work group is effective.
Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt on Tuesday asking why the agency was quitting its leadership of the work group.
"It is difficult to understand why the EPA has announced its intention to reduce its role in the cleanup process while simultaneously ... concluding the 'current plans to clean up the site would leave the former nuclear test site unsafe for even casual picnicking,"' Gallegly wrote. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer also weighed in, saying they would urge the Department of Energy to follow the EPA's recommendations.
The controversy surrounds the DOE's plan to remove just 2 percent of the soil on the contaminated site, which would lead to an additional 1-in-3,333 cancer risk.
The DOE said the cleanup falls into the EPA's acceptable risk range of one in a million to one in 10,000 additional cancers from exposure to radiation on the site.
"I would be delighted to live on that site. ... I would have no qualms about my granddaughter living on that site," said Ron Kathren, a Washington State University professor and DOE consultant. "The risk, if any, would be trivial."
The EPA said previous DOE surveys of radiological contamination at the site were inadequate and urged the agency to thoroughly study the soil.
Also Wednesday the EPA announced that the field lab does not qualify for the national list of priority cleanups, which would have given the EPA power to regulate the decontamination.
The former nuclear site scored only a 1.08 on the EPA's hazard-ranking system, which looks at the potential threats to human health from such sites. National priority list sites score at least a 28. That doesn't mean the field lab is safe, officials explained. It means the site doesn't pose an immediate, severe risk to people living near the lab.

Field Lab Cleanup Criticized
EPA says the standards at the Rocketdyne site near Simi Valley don't meet U.S. criteria.

By Gregory W. Griggs
Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2003

Ongoing cleanup operations at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory are inconsistent with federal environmental regulations, and leave too much radioactivity behind to allow future development at the site or even unrestricted recreational uses, according to Environmental Protection Agency officials.
Cleanup standards at the former nuclear research facility near Simi Valley do not meet federal criteria because they are based strictly on radioactive levels, rather than the cancer risk they pose, according to a Dec. 5 letter from the agency's waste management division addressed to Henry DeGraca, an official with the Department of Energy's regional office in Oakland.
"EPA does not currently believe that cleanup at [Rocketdyne] will satisfy standards for unrestricted land use," Arlene Kabei, associate director of waste management, wrote in the 11-page letter to DeGraca.
The EPA was asked by neighbors of the lab site and elected officials to independently evaluate the DOE's radiological cleanup. But the agency has no jurisdictional power over the ongoing cleanup operations and announced last week it would scale back its oversight after more than a dozen years.
DOE officials have maintained that the lab site, where DOE-commissioned nuclear research was conducted for four decades beginning in the early 1950s, would pose no significant threat to human health or the environment once the multimillion-dollar cleanup is completed in 2007.
Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) fired off a letter Tuesday asking recently appointed EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt to explain why the two agencies can't reach a mutually acceptable cleanup standard to ensure public safety.
"I am amazed, as are my constituents, that two federal agencies have failed to agree on the best course of action and that commitments repeatedly made over the years are being abandoned," Gallegly wrote.
The energy agency announced in April that it would only clean the site to minimum EPA standards, effectively removing about 5,500 cubic meters of contaminated soil, or less than 2%, instead of the nearly 405,000 cubic meters that exist. Once cleared for unrestricted use, critics say, the 2,800-acre property could potentially be used for homes, schools or day-care facilities.
"In yet another public health rollback, EPA is caving in to pressure and pulling out of the clean-up process," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Tuesday in a prepared statement.
"Instead of protecting the public, the EPA and the Department of Energy are planning to leave behind hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of radioactive soil."
And Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) is expected to send a letter today to U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging his agency to clean up the field lab to the more stringent standards required of EPA Superfund sites, according to a spokesman in her Washington office.
In her memo to DeGraca, Kabei states that not enough soil samples have been collected from subsurface locations on the Rocketdyne site to make decisions on unrestricted land use. She advocates more extensive sampling to assess radiological contamination.
"Subsurface contamination, if present, could be exposed when digging foundations, installing in-ground swimming pools, or other excavation activities, posing an additional potential risk to workers and residents," Kabei wrote.
She states that the DOE's cleanup plan would only make the property acceptable for some restricted recreational uses, such as camping or picnicking, but only with time limitations.
"We feel more study is needed, more data needs to be collected on the site before it's released for unrestricted use," Kabei said in an interview Tuesday. "We've provided the technical information we were asked for now it's really up to the community and elected officials to decide what it wants the Department of Energy to do next."
EPA officials have determined that the field lab's level of contamination, though of concern, is not severe enough to place it on the federal Superfund priority list. The decision was based on several factors, including that there are no homes or schools now on the site and that the groundwater beneath the radioactive area is not used for drinking.
Dan Hirsch, president of the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap, said the Department of Energy is breaking a promise it has made since 1995 to clean all its former nuclear testing sites to the EPA's more exacting standards.
"DOE has reversed course and has said now it will leave 99% of the contaminant in place and allow the site to be released for unrestricted residential use. That means one day children could be playing on top of plutonium," Hirsch said. "If they don't clean it up to the [optimal] EPA standard, the people who are living around the site will continue to risk being exposed every time the wind blows or the rain comes."
The public will have a chance to comment on the issue tonight during a session of the Santa Susana Field Lab work group, which will meet from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Grand Vista Hotel, 999 Enchanted Way, in Simi Valley. Representatives of the two federal agencies and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control will speak.
"As always, we want to work with the regulatory agencies and the Department of Energy to do as thorough and as timely a cleanup as possible under the current regulatory standards," said Dan Beck, a spokesman for Boeing, which now owns the property.
"We're not going to become involved in the debate between the EPA and the DOE," Beck added. "If they resolve their differences and come to some sort of agreement, then we'll continue to clean up to that standard. That's our commitment."
Rocketdyne conducted nuclear research from the 1950s to the 1980s. In 1956, the company began operating test reactors at the site and research continued despite a partial fuel meltdown in 1959. Nuclear testing was discontinued at the site in 1989.

EPA Faults DOE Cleanup at Field Lab
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer
Monday, December 08, 2003 - The Department of Energy has failed to fulfill its promise to meet stringent standards in cleaning up the former nuclear research site at the Santa Susana Field Lab, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a letter released Monday.
The DOE's final cleanup plan does not aim for a 1-in-a-million cancer risk as required by federal standards, despite a commitment to the community to do so, EPA Waste Management Division Associate Director Arlene Kabei wrote in a letter. In addition, the 290-acre portion of the Boeing lab in the Simi Hills would not be safe for future residential use.
While Kabei could not be reached for comment, neighbors of the field laboratory said her letter clearly pointed out the difference between what the EPA is expecting and what the DOE is willing to do.
"This is a fundamental line in the sand, with the federal environmental agency saying this site isn't safe to release," said Dan Hirsch, a nuclear watchdog who sits on the work group overseeing the cleanup. "This really puts the ball in the lap of legislators to force resolution of the two."
Despite Kabei's concerns, DOE officials repeated earlier statements that they are meeting stringent cleanup requirements at the former nuclear research lab, saying the decontamination plan does meet EPA standards and is fully protective of human health and the environmental.
"The final cleanup level is well within risk range," said DOE Project Manager Mike Lopez, adding that he would specifically address the EPA's letter at a work group meeting Wednesday night.
With the two agencies at loggerheads, Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, is writing a letter to EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt on the future of the agency's involvement at the Santa Susana Field Lab.
"There have been rough spots in the past. There may be an impasse here," Gallegly spokesman Tom Pfeifer said Monday. "That's why he's once again going to Mr. Leavitt to seek a solution."
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office said Monday she is writing a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham asking DOE to comply with the EPA's guidelines.
The debate over the cleanup at the lab centers on a few key issues, namely whether an independent survey will be done to determine the extent of soil contamination at the site and how much contaminated soil the DOE eventually has to remove.
The DOE is charged with demolishing and removing buildings where nuclear research was conducted from from the 1950s to 1990s. The property is now owned by the Boeing Co.
The EPA was brought as an independent consultant to oversee the work. The federal environmental agency had serious concerns with DOE and Boeing reports on nuclear contamination at the lab and committed to doing an independent survey analyzing radiation in the soil -- if the DOE would pay the bill.
The DOE decided in September not to fund the study, which has since been canceled.
Without more information of soil contamination, EPA officials said they are not convinced the DOE plan to remove just 2 percent of the nuclear contamination is sufficient.
"They've done considerable amount of characterization," EPA project manager Michael Feeley said of the soil surveys. "But from what we know now, we still think that is incomplete.
For that reason, the EPA is also recommending against building homes on the property some day for fear of radiation exposure. Limited picnicking or camping or other day-use recreational activities would be OK.


Felkins ANTHOLOGY and HOTSHEETS *Copyright Madeline L. Felkins 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 2004 2005
Madeline Felkins Rocketdyne/Boeing Hotsheets News

HOT GRAVES
Simi Residents Believe Thyroid Diseases/Cancers/Disorders to be Caused by Rocketdyne/Boeing SSFL Contamination

Supreme Court OKs 2000 Three Mile Island Lawsuits

June 1945 - June 1955: The Effects of Ionizing Radiation U. S. Government Report (University of California Included)
Radiation Sickness or Death Caused by Surreptitious Administration of Ionizing Radiation to an Individual: CIA March, 1969; USIB August 1969

Clarine Ruth (Clara) Bragg, Pico Ranch, Los Angeles, California, 23 October, 1919

B. 25 January, 1895, Los Angeles, CA; D. 16 April, 1990, Oxnard, Ventura County, CA
Buried Veterans National Cemetary Los Angeles, California

WWII Active Duty United States Army: MEDIC Clara Bragg Higgins (O'Higgins)


Peter Newport Bragg
Children of the Manhattan Project

Resisting Nazi Propaganda in Southern California 1933-1945

"A nation which deliberately infects itself with poison will inevitably sicken and die."

Opening Statement by Telford Taylor [from Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946�April 1949. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O, 1949�1953.]

Perchlorate Contamination in Simi Groundwater: See Map; Includes area spanning Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Stearns Street, and sites West to 1st Street.