Rockwell’s Emergency Plan Challenged : Environment: A judge rules that plans for dealing with accidents at the Santa Susana field lab inaccurately imply agreements with agencies.

An administrative judge for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has questioned the accuracy of the on-site emergency plan prepared by Rockwell International for its Santa Susana Field Laboratory west of Chatsworth.

Judge Peter B. Bloch, in an order dated Tuesday, gave Rockwell 30 days to explain why the emergency plan lists local hospitals and fire stations that have no arrangements with Rockwell to respond to a radiological emergency at the test site in the Simi Hills, where the firm does nuclear research for the federal government.

In issuing the order, Bloch affirmed a local activist’s contentions that the plan inaccurately implies that firm agreements exist between the company and a host of off-site agencies.

Donald W. Wallace, head of the anti-nuclear Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition, told Bloch at a public hearing in late September that the plan was “rife with false assurances.” Wallace said he had checked with some Los Angeles fire stations and found they had not agreed to provide ambulance service as the plan suggested.

NRC inspectors followed up the allegation and reported to Bloch earlier this week.

A Rockwell spokesman said the company had not seen Bloch’s order and could not comment.

The emergency plan did not specifically state that there were firm agreements, but it listed a host of police, sheriff’s and fire stations, and hospitals that it said “are supportive in any emergency situation that may arise at the Santa Susana site.”

Bloch also took issue with the NRC’s report on the accuracy of the statement. He noted, for example, that NRC inspectors interviewed Rockwell but not Wallace. And he questioned a conclusion in the NRC report that the discrepancies did not violate NRC rules.

According to the NRC’s report, Rockwell has a “verbal agreement” with one of the listed hospitals, whose personnel have been trained in treating radioactively contaminated patients. But two other listed hospitals merely “expressed an interest” in providing such care, the NRC said.

Other “statements related to support from L.A. organizations” were apparently copied from versions of the plan that were in effect when Rockwell’s plant in Canoga Park was under NRC license, the NRC report said. Santa Susana is in eastern Ventura County, where Los Angeles agencies normally do not operate.

In a memo accompanying the report, NRC official Gregory Yuhas said it appeared Rockwell “did not falsify information . . . though someone reading the plan could incorrectly infer that there were direct formal arrangements” with “off-site parties.”

The judge said it was not clear if NRC officials had considered the possibility that Rockwell violated agency rules “by submitting misstatements--apparently negligent or grossly negligent misstatements--in an application for a license.”

Ross Scarano, director of radiological safety at the NRC’s western regional office in Walnut Creek, said Wednesday that Rockwell had sufficient emergency response agreements, even though it inaccurately listed some off-site agencies.

But Scarano, backing away from the NRC report’s conclusions that Rockwell violated no rules, said the commission may yet cite Rockwell for a violation after reviewing “what Rockwell gives to the judge.”

Rockwell filed the plan as part of its request to renew an NRC license for the “hot lab” at Santa Susana--a workshop where nuclear materials are handled by remote control. Bloch is the presiding officer in the license case and Wallace, a Calabasas resident, is one of several intervenors opposing the license request.

Rockwell originally sought a 10-year renewal of the license. But in the face of flagging business for the hot lab and community opposition, the firm announced last month it would seek only a one-year renewal to complete current projects.