Felkins ANTHOLOGY and HOTSHEETS *Copyright Madeline L. Felkins 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 2004 2005 All Rights
Perchlorate: Hot and Filthy, Down and Dirty
Field Lab Clean-Up Continues
Feds Say 'Hot' Remnants of One Nuclear Reactor Removed
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, December 02, 2004, (p.m. release)- Facing increasing scrutiny over the clean-up of radioactive contamination, Department of Energy and the Boeing Corp. officials told neighbors of the Santa Susana Field Lab on Thursday night that all "hot" remnants of one former nuclear reactor have been removed.
The DOE presented the results of the Building 59 demolition and clean-up during a public meeting held at the Grand Vista Hotel in Simi Valley. The demolition was closely watched because Building 59 was one of three remaining facilities at the Simi Hills lab with radioactive contamination.
"I think this is a major achievement on the site," said Mike Lopez, DOE project manager.
Building 59 housed one of seven reactors used in nuclear research from 1959 through 1969 to develop reliable power for space exploration and satellites. The building may have been a source of the recent radioactive tritium contamination found in groundwater.
Building 59 and its 55-foot-deep concrete basement became contaminated during reactor tests.
To remove the basement without releasing radioactive dust or particles, workers sliced the concrete into blocks and dismantled it piece by piece.
The blocks were shipped to a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in Nevada.
Lopez said Department of Energy scientists took samples and tested for some "hot" contaminants, but did not find them. More tests are coming, he said.
The California Department of Health Services test results are due later this month.
"I don't think there's anything being left there," Lopez said.
Neighbors and other lab watchdogs have asked for independent testing of the site.
"I don't have much faith in their testing," said Dan Hirsch, with the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a community watchdog group.
His group said the DOE plans would leave dangerous levels of radioactive contamination at the site, which will one day be released for an unrestricted use, such as housing.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, Los Angeles city government and the Committee to Bridge the Gap sued the DOE this year over the agency's clean-up standards, which they said would leave 99 percent of the tainted soil in place.
DOE officials have said the clean-up will leave the property safe.
With building 59 demolished, the Department of Energy will begin in 2005 to take down Building 24, which held two underground vaults with test reactors.
Lastly, by 2007, the department will remove the radioactive materials handling facility where any "hot" material found is stored and packaged for disposal.
Half Million Gallons of Trichloroethylene Contaminates Rocketdyne Sites
TCE Contamination is Currently Removed from SSFL at Rate of Ten Gallons Per Year Equal to 50,000 Years of Cleanup.
The State will Review Faster Ways to Remove Contaminants
By Teresa Rochester
Ventura County Star Staff
September 18, 2004
Hoping to speed the cleanup of a toxic solvent once used to clean rocket engines, state officials plan to review new technologies as they guide the rehabilitation of the Rocketdyne site in the hills southeast of Simi Valley.
New and faster methods for removing trichloroethylene, a likely carcinogen, might hasten the cleanup and reduce the further spread of the contamination, officials said.
"The levels are high in groundwater, and we have paid attention to where the residences are," said Pauline Batarseh, supervising hazardous substances engineer with the Department of Toxic Substances Control. "We will look at different techniques. Obviously, we need to look at innovative techniques if this is to be cleaned."
Batarseh made the comment at Thursday's meeting of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Workgroup, which is monitoring the cleanup of the former rocket engine laboratory.
Before 1961, 500,000 gallons of trichloroethylene were released into the soil at the laboratory.
Existing cleanup methods are slow. Only 10 gallons of TCE are removed a year when contaminated water is pumped and then treated, said Dan Hirsch, co-chairman of the group.
Some residents at the meeting wondered whether the promise of new methods would come to pass.
"I think the hope is that as new technology becomes available, it would be used," said Dawn Kowalski, who has followed the issue for 15 years. "The pollution that's being created there is pretty horrendous."
TCE is highly likely to cause cancer in humans, according to a draft report on the chemical by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The chemical evaporates and can be breathed in and absorbed by the heart, lungs and liver, said Patrick Wilson, an EPA toxicologist. Children, infants and people with chronic illnesses are believed to be most susceptible.
The vapors can also seep up from the ground and penetrate concrete foundations. In the Northern California city of Mountain View*, (near Cupertino and San Jose), TCE has been detected in houses built on a contaminated area that had been deemed safe.
Residents near the Rocketdyne site should lobby for increased testing, said Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, who attended the meeting. Siegel said his group fought for increased testing in *Mountain View.
Siegel also criticized the lack of guidelines for determining when it is safe to build on sites where shallow aquifers have been contaminated with the chemical.
Batarseh said the Department of Toxic Substances Control is working on such guidelines.
Rocketdyne Site Findings Aired 16 September 2004
From a Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2004
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory Inter-Agency Work Group will hold a public meeting Thursday in Simi Valley to discuss the latest findings of radioactive material and other toxic substances at Boeing's Rocketdyne testing site in the Simi Hills.
The main topic of discussion will center on trichloroethylene, or TCE, a chemical once used to clean rocket components and test stands at the laboratory.
Although water at the site is not used for drinking, groundwater in areas beneath the lab are known to be contaminated with TCE.
Under federal law, permissible levels for TCE in drinking water are 5 parts per billion. The amount of TCE spilled at Rocketdyne is enough to contaminate water far above the safe drinking water level, said Dan Hirsch, a scientist and member of the Inter-Agency Work Group.
Representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will present new findings about TCE toxicity and pathways at the meeting. Other presentations will be made by Physicians for Social Responsibility and Committee to Bridge the Gap, an anti-nuclear organization.
The meeting is scheduled from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Main Stage Theater of the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center, 3050 Los Angeles Ave.
EPA Says it Can't Help Department of Energy at Santa Susana site
By Roberta Freeman Ventura County Star
26 April 2003
Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say their hands are tied in demanding more stringent cleanup of the Boeing Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab in Simi Valley.
Stuart Walker, EPA specialist based in Washington, D.C., said the Department of Energy's cleanup plan will leave behind a cancer risk three times greater than outlined in an original agreement forged between the two agencies in 1995.
Walker explained that while the EPA would like to see a more thorough decontamination of the site, a mandate from the executive level of government gives the DOE final jurisdiction.
Walker's comments came during a joint community meeting with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board in Simi Valley on Thursday evening.
The EPA reserved its time exclusively to the discussion of radioactive contamination cleanup policies, and the board explained the ongoing investigation of perchlorate in ground water.
Radioactive contamination
Residents living near the Rocketdyne site in Ventura and Los Angeles counties remain unhappy with a DOE cleanup plan announced early this month to remove radioactive decontamination from a partial nuclear meltdown in the 1950s.
Critics say the DOE's plan will leave behind 99 percent of contamination and are frustrated that the EPA has no authority to help them.
"How will the EPA stand behind us as residents to get this cleaned up?" asked Santa Susana Knolls resident Dawn Kowalski.
Frustrated after attending meetings about contamination at the site since 1989, Kowalski said she had always been led to believe the EPA would look out for residents and oversee cleanup.
Walker said the DOE decision for Rocketdyne runs counter to an agreement the EPA entered into with the agency in 1995, which said the DOE would clean up radioactive sites to a key U.S. law -- the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, known as CERCLA -- and nicknamed "Superfund."
The EPA has final authority over Superfund sites, Walker said, but the Rocketdyne site was never designated as such, because no one was living at the site or immediately exposed to contamination at the time.
Walker also defined the DOE's formulas for calculating contamination and cleanup as "old science."
Mike Lopez, DOE project manager for cleanup of Rocketdyne, defended the department's plan.
"I would disagree; we are well within the risk range," Lopez said.
Noting the bureaucracy of the situation, Walker said in the event homes were built on the Rocketdyne site after the DOE cleanup, the EPA would then likely be able to go back and say the site was too contaminated for residential use, and the DOE would have to go back and do more cleanup.
Perchlorate
Officials with the board said they are expanding testing of ground-water wells, including more wells in Chatsworth and Simi Valley and a retesting of a well that registered positive for perchlorate adjacent to the Ahmanson Ranch. The former Tierra Rejada Landfill, west of Simi Valley and closed long ago, is also going to be tested. Longtime residents of Simi Valley say rumors of illegal dumping at the site have circulated for years.
Dennis Dickerson, board executive director, said that while the majority of perchlorate contamination is related to defense industry activities, the Santa Susana Field Lab has not been confirmed or ruled out as a potential source of contamination.
Perchlorate is linked to thyroid disorders, tumors and cancer and impairs the development of the brain and nervous system of fetuses. Dickerson acknowledged the public frustration at the slow pace of investigation as to a source and promised to open the lines of communication with the public.
"The Regional Board is not your average bureaucracy. We are accountable to you and represent all of you," Dickerson said. "It's not going to be overnight; we have legal hurdles and obligations we have to meet to go to the next step," Dickerson said.
As a way of establishing the board's credibility, Dickerson said independent water samples would be sent to a state lab for blind testing so only the board would know source and contents. Critics allege that samples in the past have been filtered.
Board officials concurred with public complaints that testing for a highly soluble chemical such as perchlorate in only two feet of soil, as has been done by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, might not be an accurate measure.
The board reported that nearly 20 samples of surface and storm water at the Rocketdyne Field Lab have tested positive for perchlorate since 1998, but the concentration is steadily decreasing. High concentrations of the chemical exist on the site.
However, Boeing officials maintain the contamination is not leaving the property. Spokeswoman Blythe Jameson said the company has sampled surface ground water in back yards for decades, which showed no impact to the community.
Longtime Simi Valley resident Sherri Trout attended the public meeting for the first time and said her first impression was that there remains much to be done about the mounting information about local contamination.
"It's very scary," Trout said.
Santa Susana Field Lab Radioactive Contamination Policy Issues
EPA to Discuss U.S. Policy on
Radioactive Cleanups: *24 April 2003
*News from EPA Meeting
*EPA Calls DOE's Santa Susana
Cleanup Science 'Outdated'
By Rachel Uranga
Los Angeles
Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, April 24, 2003
*A key EPA official criticized a
Department of Energy cleanup plan that would remove only
2 percent of the nuclear radiation on a 90-acre plot of
the Santa Susana Field Lab above Chatsworth, calling the
science "outdated."
Stuart Walker's comments Thursday in the
hours before a community meeting on issues surrounding
the former Rocketdyne site marked the first time that the
Environmental Protection Agency has publicly criticized
the plan since it was released weeks ago.
"They (DOE officials) are not
actually following their own policy," said Walker,
an EPA specialist on radioactive waste.
In 1995, the two departments entered into
a joint agreement to clean up the lot so that it
eventually could be sold for housing. But the DOE, which
sponsored nuclear research at the site from the mid-1950s
to 1988, is the one legally charged with decontamination.
The EPA has no regulatory authority over it.
Mike Lopez, the site's project manager for
the DOE, defended the department, saying it is in
compliance with the agreement.
"It is a policy difference between
DOE and EPA over what's consistency," he said.
The DOE's final cleanup plan allows a
one-in-3,333 cancer-death risk rate while the EPA's
counterplan provides a rate between one in a million and
one in 10,000.
Both U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and state
Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, have blasted the DOE's
plan, vowing to seek legislation to raise the cleanup
standard.
Thursday's meeting was called by the EPA
after complaints from several activists dissatisfied with
the DOE's decontamination of the Energy Technology
Engineering Center and concerned about how perchlorate
used throughout the 2,800-acre lab has been handled.
|
By Roberta Freeman Copyright Ventura
County Star April 20,
2003
Radioactive contamination and
cleanup policies will be discussed in a public meeting this week
led by U. S. Environmental Protection Agency specialist Stuart
Walker.
The informational meeting is being
sponsored by the EPA and is not one of the regular Santa Susana
Workgroup meetings being held on cleanup efforts at the Boeing
Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab.
The meeting is scheduled to run
from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, (24 April, 2003), in the Grand
Vista Hotel Ballroom, 999 Enchanted Way, Simi Valley.
Walker is an expert on radioactive
contamination and cleanup for the EPA and is project coordinator
for cleanup of many of the most heavily contaminated sites around
the country.
Members of the Santa Susana
Workgroup asked him to come here to discuss the issues of
radioactive contamination at Rocketdyne.
"He is the national leader on
radiation cleanup policies and develops national policy,"
said EPA spokesman John Beach.
He said Walker is scheduled to
explain to the public how the EPA makes its decisions on cleanup
of sites such as Rocketdyne, which suffered a partial meltdown of
a nuclear reactor in the 1950s.
Critics have been dissatisfied with
the progress of cleanup at the field lab and fear that
radioactive waste has been taken from the site to local
landfills.
"He will explain how we decide
how clean is clean enough and how safe is safe enough,"
Beach said.
Beach said the workgroup meetings
are temporarily on hold and that a skilled conflict mediator was
being sought to serve as referee. Discussions during the meetings
have been heated and emotional.
The original charter of the workgroup was to provide the public with clear and accurate information on
contamination issues and cleanup of the site, and Beach thinks that's not being done.
"The problem is the way the
workgroup works with itself. I can't point a finger at any one
person. We are all not terribly functional," Beach said.
Report Finds High Levels
of Radiation at CA State Landfills
Associated Press 06 March 2003
LOS ANGELES- A test of 50 California trash dumps found that
nearly half had unusually high levels
of radiation,
according to state environmental officials, who cautioned that
more testing was needed.
The dumps where the radioactivity was located ranged from the Kettleman Hills
toxic waste site in rural Kings County to landfills in suburban Calabasas and the San
Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.
State health officials suspect the radiation may come from natural mineral deposits near
the landfills, or from benign sources such as neon exit signs in
movie theaters.
The state Department of Health Services has permitted mildly radioactive waste to be taken to city dumps because they
considered the material harmless.
But confusion has arisen since the disclosure of the radiation levels at 22
landfills.
Environmental groups believe the waste is not completely safe,
while landfill companies said they were never given a directive
to which radioactive refuse was allowed in their dumps.
"The data suggests there has been vastly more dumping of
radioactive waste
over the last decades, unbeknownst even to the dump operators,
than anyone suspected, and at levels that do
raise health concerns,"
said Daniel Hirsch, president of the Los Angeles anti-nuclear
group Committee to Bridge the Gap. "One should not be
finding these kinds of levels in municipal landfills."
The information released Wednesday by the California
Environmental Protection Agency was the result of sampling at 50
local dumps in California, or about 10 percent of the statewide
total, which was ordered by the state water board.
Of the 26 landfills with a lining to prevent waste pollution from
leaking into ground-water supplies, measurements at 16
exceeded maximum drinking-water safety standards.
Gov.
Gray Davis vetoed legislation last year that would have barred
all radioactive materials
from municipal dumps, siding with utilities and state health
officials who
argued that the waste
does not pose a public threat. But Davis immediately followed up
his veto with an executive order calling for a partial
moratorium on the dumping,
which is now in effect.
City to Examine Testing Methods
used on Water (Radioactive Groundwater/Runoff)
By Rachel Uranga
Daily News Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
- A week after state regulators reported
detecting radioactivity
at the Calabasas Landfill, city officials said Tuesday
that they planned to hire a consultant to examine the
techniques the state water board used in its study.
"We need some experts to look at
these figures and interpret it," Mayor Lesley Devine
said.
State officials reported that levels of uranium
and gross-alpha and gross-beta radiation
in liquid at the Calabasas dump exceeded those that would
be allowed if the water were used for drinking. The
report also said the radioactive waste was contained
on-site, a point Devine questioned.
"It appears that off-site
testing was not part of the testing,
so we don't really know does that mean it is fully
contained or it is not. Many people are concerned,"
said Devine, noting that her office has fielded phone
calls from concerned residents.
There will be additional testing, though
no time line is immediately available, said William L.
Rukeyser, assistant secretary of the California
Environmental Protection Agency.
Calabasas dump water tests radioactive
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Los Angeles Daily
News Staff
Writer
Wednesday, March 05, 2003 -
State-ordered tests detected three types of radioactive
material in the groundwater and runoff at Calabasas Landfill, but officials said Wednesday that they
need to do more studies to determine whether the levels are hazardous
Officials tested for six categories of
radiation at 50 landfills statewide and found contamination at 29, including the Calabasas Landfill, as well
as the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley and Sunshine Canyon in
Granada Hills.
The information in the report will
be used as lawmakers consider legislation that would
ban the dumping of low-level radioactive waste at landfills.
"What we've got gives us a
good starting point in terms of pursuing how California will go
about solving this issue," said William Rukeyser, spokesman
for the California Environmental Protection Agency.
He also noted that the contamination had not migrated off-site.
"The main thing for people to
remember is this, most of the high readings are found in the
(landfill liquid),
contained within landfills just as it should be," Rukeyser
said.
Nuclear watchdogs and community
activists said they were worried by the results.
"We have a problem that is
vastly larger than we initially thought," said Daniel
Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, an outspoken
anti-nuclear dumping group.
But landfill operators downplayed
the findings, saying low-level radiation is present in refuse
dumped routinely at municipal landfills.
"There doesn't appear to be
anything alarming," said John Gulledge, head of solid waste
management at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, which
operates Calabasas Landfill.
"I think all that is
reflection that there are certain levels of radioactivity in
household trash that comes to landfills," he said.
The results come nearly a year
after Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory revealed it had disposed of low-level
radioactive waste at Bradley Landfill for nearly a decade. The
U.S. Department of Energy, which oversaw the cleanup at the nuclear
and rocket research facility near Simi Valley, later said Rocketdyne
also dumped refuse at the Sunshine Canyon and Calabasas
landfills.
The tests found that at the
Calabasas Landfill, levels of three categories of radiation -- uranium, and gross-alpha and gross-beta
radiationexceeded those that would be allowed if the
water were used for drinking.
Gulledge attributed the high uranium levels at Calabasas Landfill
to the natural presence of the element in the soil, rather than
to the dumping of radioactive waste.
"We looked at both background
water quality and downstream water quality and saw it was
basically the same," Gulledge said.
But Calabasas Mayor Lesley Devine
was troubled by the initial findings.
"If the results are
significantly higher than they should be, we have to look at a
variety of options to make sure it is, No. 1, contained and, No.
2, not increased," Devine said.
Bradley exceeded recommended levels
of gross-beta radiation,
but the dump's owner said the amounts were not extraordinary.
"They are certainly in the
range of what you would find in solid waste landfill
(runoff)," said Charles White, director of regulatory
affairs with Waste Management Inc., which runs Bradley.
Sunshine Canyon tested for
excessive levels of tritium,
an element that was found in many of the landfills surveyed
during the state-ordered study.
State environmental officials said
the initial tests give them the chance to get a "statistical
handle on what in fact is out there," Rukeyser said.
He also noted that tests generally
showed the radioactivity had not migrated from the landfill
sites.
"The main thing for people to
remember is this: Most of the high readings are found in the
(runoff), contained within landfills, just as it should be,"
Rukeyser said.
However, Hirsch was not satisfied
with those assurances.
"This is a very powerful
warning flag that we have to ban immediately any radioactive
waste going into landfills."
Gov. Gray Davis last year vetoed a
bill that would have banned the dumping of low-level radioactive
waste at landfills.
Sen.
Gloria Romero,
D-Rosemead, has reintroduced similar legislation this session. A
hearing on her bill will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at the Ronald
Reagan State Building, 300 S. Spring St., Los Angeles.
Congress OKs Funding for Cleanup of
Radioactive Santa Susana Field Lab
February 19, 2003
The House and Senate approved
$16.74 million to continue cleanup of the Rocketdyne Santa Susana
Field Laboratory in the hills above
Simi Valley.
The former research laboratory, now
part of the Boeing Co.'s Canoga Park facility, has been
conducting a radioactive cleanup for
the past several years, stemming from a nuclear accident in the
1950s. The cleanup money approved
last week is for fiscal year 2003.
Bush's proposed budget for federal
spending in 2004, which will be considered by Congress later this
year, has slated $18.47 million for
cleanup.
It is among a group of sites,
including the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, that are
slated for completion between 2007 and 2012.
Copyright 2003, Ventura
County Star. All Rights
Reserved.
Back to Hotsheets