Outlook Dim for Superfund Listing of Lab

A U.S. Environmental Protection official said Friday that Rockwell International’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory is unlikely to get Superfund status because risks at the site are too minor for it to qualify for the federal toxic cleanup list.

A 1987 assessment by an EPA contractor found that the laboratory west of Chatsworth did not rank high enough in terms of environmental hazards to qualify for the Superfund list, which includes about 900 sites nationwide.

EPA inspectors toured the site Thursday in response to pressure from Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and allegations that the initial assessment did not take into account all pollutants at the site, including radioactive contamination.

Inclusion Doubtful

But at a news conference in Burbank late Friday, Richard Vaille, assistant chief of waste programs for the EPA’s San Francisco regional office, said he doubts that the site will qualify for Superfund listing.

He characterized chemical and radioactive contamination at Santa Susana as “low residues” and said there is little chance of public exposure.

Vaille said, however, that the EPA established a working group of several health and environmental agencies to coordinate monitoring and cleanup of the site. The agencies include the state Department of Health Services, the Los Angeles office of the Regional Water Quality Board and the U.S. Department of Energy, which contracts with Rockwell for nuclear and other energy work on a 290-acre swath of the 2,668-acre Santa Susana site.

Vaille made his remarks after a nearly daylong organizational meeting of the group at the Department of Health Services’ office in Burbank. He said the group will hold a public meeting soon to answer questions from concerned citizens.

Other Pollution

Santa Susana has long been on the state Superfund cleanup list, but not due to the contamination that has recently been the subject of wide public concern. The state Superfund listing is due to chemical-solvent contamination of ground water beneath an area of the site where rocket engines are tested. Levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) in ground water there are up to 11,000 parts per billion, a far higher pollution reading than any found on the Department of Energy portion of the site.

Over more than three decades, Rockwell’s work on the site for the Department of Energy and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, has included work with 16 nuclear reactors--none operating now--and the recycling of nuclear fuel.

A recent Department of Energy report indicated that generally low-level chemical and radioactive contamination exists in several areas of the Department of Energy portion of the site, but said the pollution poses no immediate health threat. The department called for better ground-water monitoring at the site, and Rockwell has said it will drill 18 more monitoring wells.