Field Lab Cleanup Criticized

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 Chatsworth 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 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 Energy Department’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.

Energy Department 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, 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 cleanup process,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Tuesday in a prepared statement.

And Sen. Dianne 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.