By Amanda Covarrubias
Times Staff Writer Copyright 2003 Los Angeles
Times
April 2, 2003
A former nuclear testing site at
Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley will
not have to undergo a rigorous environmental review before the
contaminated property is cleaned up and cleared for unrestricted
use, including housing, federal officials announced Tuesday.
The Department of Energy said the site of a nuclear reactor
meltdown in 1959 would pose no significant threat to human health
or the environment after it is cleaned up to at least minimum
standards for radioactive contamination set by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
Cleanup of the site is expected to be completed by 2007.
The decision drew immediate fire from antinuclear activists,
Rocketdyne neighbors and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), an
outspoken critic of the lab's cleanup operations. Boxer said she
would appeal directly to the EPA to conduct a full-scale
environmental impact review.
"The Department of Energy is authorizing the release of a
witches' brew of radioactive and chemical contaminants" by
allowing a less extensive review of the property, Boxer said in a
prepared statement. "We need a full and complete cleanup of
the facility."
The decision regarding the hilltop laboratory in Ventura County
could have repercussions for other mothballed nuclear testing
sites around the country operated by the department during the
Cold War. It is sure to add fuel to the debate about what lengths
and costs the federal government should go to clean up
radioactive remnants of the Nuclear Age for future generations.
Simi Valley resident Dawn Kowalski, 24, said she was appalled
that families might one day live atop a radioactive landscape,
with its commanding views of the Santa Monica Mountains to the
west and the San Fernando and Simi valleys below.
"There's children's and people's lives at stake,"
Kowalski said. "We know more and more about low-level
radiation causing big health risks. People probably wouldn't be
allowed to grow vegetables in their gardens. What a way to live.
It's such a beautiful spot, people will want to live there
anyway."
Although the outdoor field lab stretches across 2,668 acres, the
decision applies to only 270 acres, including 90 acres where the
federal government conducted its nuclear research. Rocketdyne is
a division of aerospace giant and military defense contractor
Boeing.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Rocketdyne conducted nuclear
research under contract for the Energy Department and the Atomic
Energy Commission. In 1956, the company began operating test
reactors at the site. Research continued despite a number of
spills and accidents, including a partial fuel meltdown in 1959.
Nuclear operations were shut down in 1989.
The Energy Department considered two scenarios for cleanup and
selected the plan that calls for clearing away 5,500 cubic meters
of contaminated soil instead of 450,000 cubic meters. The option
does not require the government to conduct a full environmental
study of the effect the radioactive contamination would have on
people and wildlife.
The other option would have required the more extensive review at
a cost of "a couple million dollars" to taxpayers, said
John Belluardo, a spokesman for the Energy Department's National
Nuclear Security Administration office in Oakland.
"We issued a finding of no significant impact,"
Belluardo said. "When the site is cleaned up according to
the alternative we have selected, there would not be any harm
done to human health or the environment."
In reaching its decision, Belluardo said, the Energy Department
found there was a greater probability of someone getting killed
in an accident caused by the thousands of truck trips that would
be taken up and down the mountain under the more exhaustive
effort than a resident contracting cancer in the next 40 years
from contamination left behind under the selected option.
Mike Lopez, director of the Department of Energy office in
Oakland, said the cleanup plan falls within the range for
radiological decontamination set by the EPA.
Lopez said the cleanup effort will cost about $100 million, while
the alternative would be double that amount.
Antinuclear activist Dan Hirsch, who has been fighting for full
cleanup for decades, said federal officials simply chose the most
expedient and less costly alternative.
He said Energy Department officials made an agreement in 1995 to
clean up the site using the most stringent requirements
"They are breaking their promise to clean it up to more
protective standards and will leave, by their own admission, 99%
of the radioactively contaminated soil in place," Hirsch
said Tuesday.
"Kids could end up playing on soil contaminated with
plutonium and strontium and cesium from the old meltdown (1959) up
there, just because [the department] wants to save money."
Back to Hotsheets
Officials Slam DOE's Minor
Santa Susana Field Lab Cleanup By Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Daily News Tuesday, April 01, 2003 The final cleanup plan, which allows a potential cancer risk up to 300 times greater than an alternative proposal that would have cost more than two times as much, was immediately denounced by California's two U.S. senators, other officials and community activists. Since the Daily News revealed radioactive and toxic chemical contamination at the site in 1989, lawmakers and activists have sought a thorough investigation. They have pushed for a cleanup that would have allowed a risk of only one in a million cancer deaths among residents if the hilltop site were developed. The DOE's plan would cost about $100 million, compared with more than $200 million for the alternative. "I am deeply disappointed that the Department of Energy appears to have reneged on a commitment made to the people of this community to clean up the site consistent with EPA's Superfund standards," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "The local community is understandably concerned about potential health and environmental risks, and their concerns should not be ignored by the federal agency responsible for the contamination of the site." Sen. Barbara Boxer said she would call on Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to conduct a full-scale review and seek legislative action to get a complete site cleanup. "The Department of Energy is authorizing the release of a witches' brew of radioactive and chemical contaminants," Boxer said. State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, called the DOE plan insufficient, and said she plans to seek legislation that would prevent the property from being sold unless the stricter cleanup standard is used and that would require disclosure of cancer risks to potential buyers. "We don't intend to stand still for it," Kuehl said. The Energy Department officials said cost estimates did not determine their decision and that the cleanup would get as close as possible to the one-in-a-million risk level. The plan meets Superfund guidelines, they said, and the risks are low for the estimated 500 people who could one day live on the site. "It's still less than one person," said DOE spokesman John Belluardo. "The decision is based on the fact that it is protective of human health and the environment. The fact we can select that for half the cost is an added benefit for taxpayers, but certainly not the motivation." The decision caps an environmental assessment process launched in May 2000 to take a comprehensive look at nuclear contamination after the agency started cleaning up the site, where nuclear research was halted in 1988. The Daily News disclosed in 1989 that chemical and nuclear contamination was found at the site, where health studies eventually found higher cancer mortality rates among workers exposed to radiation and some chemicals. Rocket engine testing and other work continues today at other parts of the sprawling 2,800-acre lab in the hills between the San Fernando and Simi valleys. The DOE is using the one-in-3,333 cancer-death risk with the intention of getting to a one-in-50,000 risk. Risks are based on various expectations of residents living at the site over a 40-year period. Under the final plan, the department will remove 9,100 cubic meters of contaminated soil and debris -- compared with 408,450 under the alternative. That means they'll be hauling 670 truckloads of soil compared with about 30,000. Project Manager Mike Lopez said it's not feasible to get to the one-in-a-million risk level. "It is just extremely difficult to get to that small delta above background," he said. "Sometimes you can't get down to that level, as far as some of the radio nucleides." As part of its report, the DOE said no further environmental review is needed at the site. The EPA's Arlene Kabei, associate director of the waste management division, declined to comment. A Boeing spokeswoman said the standards being used to clean up Rocketdyne are consistent with those at nuclear sites in most other states. "I can just say we're committed to cleaning the field lab to residential standards and releasing it to use," said Boeing's Blythe Jameson. "We're going to do what's in the best interest of the community and our employees.' From the 1950s, that portion of the lab had been used for nuclear energy research, operations that were shut down in 1988. Health studies of workers exposed to radiation found higher cancer mortality rates. Longtime anti-nuclear activist Daniel Hirsch said he was outraged by the department's report. "They've decided to expose people to hundreds of times more radiation in order to save some money, but it will cost lives," he said. "We have just begun to fight. If they think they can get way with this, they have another thought coming."
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Hidden landfill data angers
legislators Friday, March 07, 2003 - State
regulators in charge of monitoring radioactive waste
faced harsh criticism Friday from state lawmakers, who
claimed that secrecy, poor oversight and lax enforcement
have led to the dumping of radioactive material in local
landfills. The Senate Select Committee
on Urban Landfills hearing came just two days after
environmental regulators announced that radioactive
material had been detected at 29 of 50 landfills tested,
including 18 with unusually high levels. The Calabasas, Bradley and
Sunshine Canyon landfills in the San Fernando Valley and
Puente Hills near Whittier were among those that tested
positive for radioactivity. State Sen. Gloria Romero,
D-Rosemead, chastised the state Department of Health
Services for withholding information on the disposal
sites for decommissioned radioactive waste. The
department has said the information would pose a national
security risk because terrorists could collect the
material and use it to make bombs. "DHS can't tell us
where the waste went," said Romero, who led the
hearing. "I think based on these results, we can
make a pretty good guess -- Bradley Landfill, Sunshine
Canyon Landfill, Puente Hills Landfill." Each of the four Los
Angeles-area dumps contained high levels of radioactivity
in the leachate, or the liquid that accumulates in the
bottom of the landfills. Officials found that
radioactivity exceeded drinking water standards in the
groundwater at Calabasas Landfill, but operators said
that was due to high levels of uranium occurring
naturally in the area's soil. State water officials
cautioned that more study is needed to determine the
extent of radioactivity in landfills and whether the
levels pose a health risk. The water testing was
ordered by the state Water Resources Control Board last
year after activists discovered that the Department of
Health Services had long deemed low-level radioactive
materials safe enough to sent to city dumps. After being sued by the
nuclear watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap, the
department has launched an environmental study to help
develop a new standard for decommissioning radioactive
waste. Calabasas City Councilwoman
Janice Lee said she has little faith in state health
regulators who have kept residents in the dark on
radioactive dumping and contamination. "I believe there
should be a federal grand jury convened to investigate
the Department of Health Services repeatedly acting to
withhold, conceal and distort the level of risk to our
citizens," Lee told Romero. But Alan Pastenak with the
California Radioactive Materials Forum said the hearing
was not designed to get the best science on radioactive
waste. "Unwarranted fear will
lead to bad science policy," he told Romero.
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