Canoga Park Plants With Nuclear Pasts : Rockwell to Test Soil, Ground Water
Rockwell International has told state water quality officials that it will test soil and ground water for radioactivity at its two plants in Canoga Park, where the firm has worked with radioactive materials since the 1950s.
The company proposed the tests in a June 15 letter to Regional Water Quality Control Board officials in Los Angeles, who had asked Rockwell for details of nuclear work in Canoga Park and about any radiation measurements that may have been taken of soil or ground water there.
“We don’t have any reason to believe there’s any radioactivity, but we haven’t looked,” Steve Lafflam, environmental unit manager of Rockwell’s Rocketdyne division, said Saturday.
“Rather than say we didn’t look, because of the attention, we will look,” Lafflam said.
He was referring to concerns growing from publicity about a U.S. Department of Energy report on chemical and radioactive contamination at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County just west of Chatsworth and southeast of Simi Valley, where the firm does nuclear and other energy research for the federal agency.
In a May 31 letter to Rockwell, state water quality officials made a formal request for reports and test data on conditions at Santa Susana and asked for radioactivity data on soil and ground water at Canoga Park. Water quality officials Saturday could not be reached for comment.
Rockwell employs about 7,000 workers at its plants on Canoga and De Soto avenues, whose main endeavors are design, manufacture and testing of rocket engines and other aerospace systems. But since the 1950s--on a small and sometimes not-so-small scale--both plants have handled radioactive materials.
At the Canoga Avenue site, state water quality officials and Rockwell have been working together more than three years on plans to clean up ground water contaminated by chemical solvents.
Yet before this month, the state did not request and Rockwell did not volunteer to test for radioactivity in the ground water there, even though the company regularly tests levels of solvents in the water from past tank leaks.
Rockwell’s offer to test was contained in a six-page letter and a thick stack of documents sent to water officials late last week.
Included was a plan for carrying out Rockwell’s previously announced proposal to install 18 additional ground-water-monitoring wells in areas of known or suspected contamination on the 290-acre portion of the Santa Susana lab devoted to Department of Energy work. Over the years, Rockwell has operated 16 nuclear reactors there--the last one shut down in the early ‘80s--and until two years ago, recycled highly radioactive nuclear fuel.
Moderate Levels
The DOE report released last month, part of a nationwide survey of environmental conditions at energy department sites, disclosed only moderate levels of chemical and radioactive pollution at the Santa Susana lab. But the report said Rockwell’s network of monitoring wells was too skimpy to fully assess ground-water quality or to assure that contaminants have not seeped off the site, as the company has maintained.
One area to be tested is near a sewage leach field where radioactive water was either dumped or accidentally spilled in the early 1960s. In 1978, during excavation of the leach field, radioactivity was detected in cracks in the underlying bedrock. The cracks “were sealed with tar,” according to the testing plan, but it was uncertain if any radioactivity seeped deeper into soil or ground water.
Lafflam said Saturday that the company hopes to begin developing the new monitoring wells next month and to have test data before the end of the fall.
Although the Canoga and De Soto plants are mainly involved in aerospace work, both have a nuclear past and still work with radioactive materials.
From the mid- to late 1950s, the Canoga plant had a small research nuclear reactor in its Vanowen building and also fabricated nuclear fuel. The plant now performs industrial radiography, using powerful X-rays to examine rocket engines.
Ground-water tests by Rockwell in 1985 showed high levels of chemical solvents beneath the Canoga site, including trichloroethylene (TCE) concentrations as high as 26,000 parts per billion and levels of cancer-causing benzene as high as 6,000 p.p.b. The nearest public water supply wells are at least 10 miles away in North Hollywood.
Cleanup Plan
Rockwell has continued monitoring the ground water and has been negotiating with the Water Quality Control Board on a cleanup plan. But Lafflam said the firm has never tested for radioactivity and has never been asked to--adding that he would “be really surprised” if any were found.
Lafflam said the first radiation data on the Canoga plant ground water should be available by fall. Ground water beneath the De Soto complex at De Soto and Nordhoff Street has not been tested for radiation or chemicals, he said.
At the De Soto plant, Rockwell operates a gamma irradiation cell, ran a small nuclear reactor from 1959 until 1978 and manufactured nuclear fuel for the Atomic Energy Commission and its successor, the DOE, from 1959 until 1982.
After extensive decontamination work, the fuel fabrication “facility was . . . released for non-restricted use in 1984,” according to Rockwell’s letter to water quality officials.
Decontamination of the 100,000-square-foot fuel fabrication area included removal of contaminated drains beneath the floor. It also required removal of soil in some areas where radioactive water had leaked through pipe joints, said Marlin E. Remley, former director of nuclear safety and licensing at Rocketdyne.
Because radioactivity was not present even a foot or two beneath the drains, it seemed certain that none had spread deeper into soil or ground water, Remley said.
“We’re satisfied that we did not contaminate any ground water,” he said.
In the material filed with the water quality board, Rockwell proposed developing six monitoring wells at the De Soto plant and taking soil samples in areas of chemical storage and handling.
But Lafflam said money for this work was not budgeted by Rocketdyne for the present fiscal year. As a result, he said, test data from the De Soto plant might not be available until next year.
