Radioactive Water Found Under Rockwell Site : Environment: Officials say the radiation levels appeared to be low and pose no hazard to the public.

Elevated radioactivity has been found in ground water beneath Rockwell International’s Canoga Avenue plant in Canoga Park, which was once a nuclear research site, state water quality officials said Friday.

Officials said the radiation levels appeared to be low and pose no hazard to the public. The nearest drinking water wells are 10 miles away in North Hollywood.

The radiation was detected in water samples from seven wells near the plant’s Building 38, which was used 30 years ago for nuclear operations, according to a brief report by the Los Angeles office of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“Based on preliminary data, there is evidence of radioactivity in the ground water,” said Dr. Robert Ghirelli, executive officer for the regional board.

But Ghirelli said it appeared that naturally occurring radiation alone could not account for the readings.

“It’s certainly enough for us to want to dig deeper,” he said.

Officials of Rockwell’s Rocketdyne division, which is headquartered at the Canoga Avenue complex, had no comment late Friday. “I’m not aware of this thing,” company spokesman Pat Coulter said, and other officials could not be reached.

The report by the regional board, dated Dec. 4, also disclosed that the board’s staff had been informed that water from other monitoring wells on a Southern Pacific right of way next to the Rockwell plant also “exhibited elevated gross alpha and gross beta particle activity.” Alpha and beta are types of radiation.

That monitoring is connected with the possible sale of the right of way to the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission for use as a rail transit line.

Building 38, near the southeast corner of Vanowen Street and Owensmouth Avenue, was used for nuclear work by Rockwell’s former Atomics International Division from about 1956 to 1959. Nuclear fuel was fabricated, and a small laboratory reactor operated there.

The report said alpha radiation in the Rockwell well samples appeared to exceed the state safe drinking water standard of 15 picocuries per liter of water. However, it said the tests were inconclusive about how much of the radiation was naturally occurring or man-made.

Only one sample exceeded the state standard for beta radiation of 50 picocuries per liter of water, according to the report. But the report said beta readings were higher for unfiltered water samples than for filtered samples, indicating that soil particles in the unfiltered water were radioactively contaminated, possibly by activities on the site.

“ ‘Elevated’ is a way of saying we suspect it’s above what would be normal amounts,” said Phil Chandler, an engineering geologist with the regional board. “I don’t see that these levels are something for everybody to begin to beat down any doors over,” he said.

The ground-water tests were requested by the regional water board on May 31, in response to disclosures about nuclear work once done at the Canoga plant. “We don’t have any reason to believe there’s any radioactivity, but we haven’t looked,” Steve Lafflam, environmental unit manager for Rocketdyne, said at the time.

Rocketdyne and water quality officials have known for years about a major ground-water problem involving chemical solvents from spills and leaky tanks. But before last spring, the state did not request tests for radioactivity, and the firm did not volunteer them.

The concern about radioactivity followed reports on radioactive and chemical pollution at Rockwell’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory west of Chatsworth, where nuclear work was done from the 1950s until recent years on a much larger scale than at Canoga.

The company’s nearby De Soto Avenue plant also was used to fabricate nuclear fuel and ran an experimental nuclear reactor from the late 1950s until the early 1980s for federal nuclear agencies.

Under a proposed DOE cleanup plan for Santa Susana, funds also would be included for radiation testing of soil and ground water at the De Soto plant, beginning next year.