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Radiation levels at Santa Susana questioned While certain that a streak of white substance found in the hillsides of a Runkle Canyon site is not a contaminant, the Department of Toxic Substances Control says it needs more testing to explain the variation in radiation levels found at the Simi Valley site since 1998. Runkle Canyon, near a former rocket engine test site known as the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, has been the subject of controversy over possible ground contamination.

A draft cleanup agreement between the state and two federal agencies that conducted operations at a polluted former rocket engine and nuclear test site near Simi Valley was released Wednesday for public review and comment. Missing from the consent order between the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control, the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA is the Boeing Co., the primary owner of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. "Unfortunately we have not gotten to a public review stage with Boeing," Maziar Movassaghi, acting director of the DTSC, said in an interview.

Santa Susana Field Laboratory history * Data fuzzy on severity of two U.S. accidents Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power became one of the nation's main builders of rocket engines during the Cold War, and later became a major producer of "Star Wars" defense technology. Atomics International, a separate division of Rocketdyne's parent corporation, also set up shop at the 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory south of Simi Valley, where it operated 10 small nuclear test reactors. The legacy of technological innovations at the Field Lab co-exists with a reality of chemical and nuclear contamination over a period of more than 50 years:

"A landfill in the San Joaquin Valley will not accept waste from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory following an outcry over Boeing Co. and NASA's application to send radioactively contaminated dirt there. Waste Management, the company that owns the Kettleman Hills landfill, notified California's Secretary for Environmental Protection on Tuesday of the company's decision. "Waste Management's Kettleman Hills Facility has voluntarily decided not to accept solid or hazardous wastes from any portion of the Santa Susana Field Lab because of the uncertainty and community concerns about the levels of radioactive constituents in these materials," Senior District Manager Robert G. Henry wrote in a letter Tuesday to the state EPA's Linda Adams."

he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the help of former workers at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to identify contamination from nuclear and radiological projects at the site. The EPA is interested in interviewing former workers for three companies-Atomics International, Rocketdyne and Rockwell-who may know about spills, dumping or other releases of radiological material, the agency said in a news release this week. The lab was established in 1946 and covers nearly 2,900 acres in eastern Ventura County, just west of the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.

he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the help of former workers at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to identify contamination from nuclear and radiological projects at the site. The EPA is interested in interviewing former workers for three companies-Atomics International, Rocketdyne and Rockwell-who may know about spills, dumping or other releases of radiological material, the agency said in a news release this week. The lab was established in 1946 and covers nearly 2,900 acres in eastern Ventura County, just west of the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.

Dozens of workers diagnosed with cancer after their employment at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory may have more leverage in claiming federal compensation to help with their health care. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health first granted a special designation earlier this month for those assigned to the field lab's 270-acre Area IV, where much of the nuclear work was conducted. The designation applies to those who were exposed to radiation for at least 250 days, between Jan. 1, 1955 and Dec, 31, 1958. On Wednesday, the federal agency broadened the designation to include those who worked at the field lab in 1959, the year of a partial nuclear meltdown at the site. The federal action is the result of a efforts by Bonnie Klea of West Hills, who worked as a secretary for Rocketdyne in the 1960s. A survivor of bladder cancer, she compiled letters, press releases, news articles and documentaries about radioactive and chemical contamination at the site. She delivered the petition in 2007, after learning that the Department of Labor had denied most of the claims for compensation filed by cancer-stricken workers under the 2000 Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act. Of the 993 claims filed by Thursday with the Department of Labor, 249 had been denied, 164 had been approved and the rest are pending.

BEFORE the spring of 1989, all most people knew of the Santa Susana Field Lab were the occasional rocket tests that sent a thundering boom across the Valley and shook the homes in West Hills, Chatsworth and Simi Valley, near the hilltop facility. The sprawling 2,859-acre lab built during the Cold War developed and tested rocket engines that powered missiles and, eventually, the Apollo and space shuttle missions. But 20 years ago last month, the Daily News obtained and reported on an environmental survey that, for the first time, revealed extensive toxic and radioactive contamination from a 290-acre U.S. Atomic Energy Commission nuclear research facility located at lab. The news shocked both neighbors and local environmental regulators, who never knew the site was once home to 10 nuclear reactors - one of which experienced a partial meltdown in 1959 - nor had any idea of the radioactive contamination.

Before they learned words like dioxin and perchlorate, mothers let sons and daughters play near streams that trickled down from hills that hid some of the government's biggest secrets. Families who settled in neighborhoods blooming in Chatsworth, West Hills and Simi Valley led idyllic lives, even when their bedroom and kitchen windows rattled from the roar of rocket engines being tested at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the Simi Hills. But in May 1989, surveys from the Department of Energy - reported exclusively in the Daily News - revealed that radioactive and toxic contamination from decades of nuclear experiments and rocket tests had leaked into soil, groundwater and bedrock at the hilltop site.

Activists are protesting a decision by the California Department of Public Health that would allow the Boeing Co. and NASA to send contaminated dirt from a nuclear accident site to a waste facility in the San Joaquin Valley that is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has the final say, has sent a letter to the agency requesting more information on its decision that the dirt "does not represent a public health threat" and could be sent to the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959. The field lab was also used for rocket engine tests.

Activists are protesting a decision by the California Department of Public Health that would allow the Boeing Co. and NASA to send contaminated dirt from a nuclear accident site to a waste facility in the San Joaquin Valley that is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control, which has the final say, has sent a letter to the agency requesting more information on its decision that the dirt "does not represent a public health threat" and could be sent to the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959. The field lab was also used for rocket engine tests.

Boeing's filing of a federal complaint on Friday the 13th against the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control over cleaning up the monstrously polluted Santa Susana Field Lab was no tardy Halloween trick. The move attempts to gut state Senate Bill 990, which was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007, to ensure that the 2,850-acre site is cleaned up to the highest standards. Invalidating SB 990 would save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars. The state's stringent cleanup levels would be relaxed, saving Boeing on the amount of soil and groundwater contamination that would have to be removed from the site and sent to a dump.

Boeing's filing of a federal complaint on Friday the 13th against the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control over cleaning up the monstrously polluted Santa Susana Field Lab was no tardy Halloween trick. The move attempts to gut state Senate Bill 990, which was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in October 2007, to ensure that the 2,850-acre site is cleaned up to the highest standards. Invalidating SB 990 would save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars. The state's stringent cleanup levels would be relaxed, saving Boeing on the amount of soil and groundwater contamination that would have to be removed from the site and sent to a dump.

Boeing Co., the owner of a former rocket engine and nuclear test site south of Simi Valley, has been ordered to remove contaminated soil to keep pollutants found in storm water from running off the site. Heavy metals, perchlorate and other toxic materials have been found in stormwater running off the Santa Susana Field Laboratory at two outfalls that drain into Dayton Canyon Creek and the Arroyo Simi.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will study radiological levels at a contaminated nuclear testing facility in the hills north of the San Fernando Valley, officials announced Monday. The $1.5 million study comes ahead of a planned cleanup of the 2,850-acre Santa Susana field lab. The Department of Energy conducted nuclear research at the site 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles from the 1950s through 1998.

Frustrated with a lack of transparency in the cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Lab, the U.S. EPA has fired off a harsh letter to the Energy Department threatening to pull out of a long-awaited radiation study at the former nuclear research site. In a July 2 letter, EPA Site Cleanup Branch Chief Michael Montgomery warned that "recent events demonstrate a significant lack of transparency in DOE's interactions with EPA and the public."

Human error helped worsen a nuclear meltdown just outside Los Angeles, and now human inertia has stymied the radioactive cleanup for half a century. "During an inspection of fuel elements on July 26 at the Sodium Reactor Experiment, operated for the Atomic Energy Commission at Santa Susana, California by Atomics International, a division of North American Aviation, Inc., a parted fuel element was observed.

On the morning of July 14, 1959, Sodium Reactor Experiment trainee John Pace received the bad news from a group of supervisors who had, he recalled, "terribly worried expressions on their faces." A reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains had experienced a power surge the night before and spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere. "They were terrified that some of the gas had blown over their own San Fernando Valley homes," recalled Pace, who was 20 at the time. "My job was to keep radiation out of the control room."

"The largest toxic waste facility in the West rejected a proposal by Boeing Co. and NASA to accept tainted soil from the site of a partial nuclear meltdown. Chemical Waste Management, which operates the San Joaquin dump, sent a letter Tuesday to Linda Adams, head of the state Environmental Protection Agency, saying the facility would not accept the hazardous waste "because of the uncertainty and community concerns about levels of radioactive constituents in these materials." The dump just outside the tiny farming town of Kettleman City, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles where thousands of rockets were tested and a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959."

"The government gave Boeing a $15.9 million stimulus contract for environmental monitoring at the same site near Simi Valley, Calif., where the company was fined for polluting a creek with chromium, dioxin, lead and mercury, the investigative journalism group California Watch reported Sunday. The Santa Susana Field Laboratory was operated by divisions of North American Aviation, which eventually became Rockwell International, then Boeing. It was the site of rocket engine testing and nuclear power development that led to toxins leaching into the dirt and groundwater."

"Regional water quality regulators have fined Boeing Co. $500,000 for contaminated stormwater runoff at a former nuclear and rocket engine testing facility in eastern Ventura County. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a consent judgment Thursday also ordering Boeing to pay $75,000 in attorneys fees and civil penalties for days when contaminants exceeded permitted limits at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Boeing spokeswoman Kamara Sams Holden says the judgment covers violations from 2007 through the end of 2009. The lab 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles was used for nuclear and rocket testing for more than four decades. A nuclear reactor had a partial meltdown at the 2,800 acre site in 1959."

"The high-tech task of investigating radiological contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory where nuclear testing took place will employ some decidedly low-tech tools. The Environmental Protection Agency will rely on four mules carrying high-tech scanners designed to detect gamma radiation contamination in rocky, steep terrain in a section of the 2,850-acre field. The animals will help solve the "challenge of trying to get in more rugged terrain," said EPA senior science adviser Gregg Dempsey of the agency's Radiation and Indoor Environments National Laboratory."

In its filing, Boeing says the recent state law changes the normal cleanup process applied throughout the state by imposing "irrational and arbitrary requirements" on Santa Susana.

In its filing, Boeing says the recent state law changes the normal cleanup process applied throughout the state by imposing "irrational and arbitrary requirements" on Santa Susana.