Rockwell Calls Off Its Final Nuclear Test at Hot Lab : Research: The company ends a long-running battle by announcing that it has contracted for remaining work to be done at the University of Missouri’s reactor.

In a surprise announcement Wednesday, Rockwell International called off plans to carry out a final nuclear experiment at the hot lab of its Santa Susana Field Laboratory west of Chatsworth, a victory for anti-nuclear activists.

Rockwell said it has contracted for the work to be done instead at the University of Missouri.

The announcement ended a long-running battle with anti-nuclear and homeowner activists opposed to Rockwell’s request to renew a nuclear materials license so the experiment, known as the TRUMP-S, could be done before decommissioning of the hot lab, a heavily shielded workshop where nuclear materials are handled by remote control.

Peter B. Bloch, the administrative law judge presiding over the license case, said Rockwell asked Wednesday to withdraw its license application and that he promptly dismissed the case.

That means Rockwell no longer is authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to handle nuclear materials in the hot lab, except as part of decontamination and decommissioning work, Bloch said. Rockwell has estimated that cleanup will cost $11 million and be finished in 1992.

Anti-nuclear activists who had fought to stop TRUMP-S had mixed emotions about Wednesday’s announcement, saying they were glad the work will not be done at the Santa Susana complex but that they are concerned about safety risks in Missouri. However, Missouri officials said they were enthusiastic about the project, aimed at developing a process to shrink high-level nuclear waste, for which there are no permanent disposal sites in the United States.

Rockwell released copies of letters from top Missouri politicians endorsing the work in Columbia, Mo., at the school’s research nuclear reactor, which Rockwell said is the nation’s largest university research reactor. The arrangement was first disclosed Wednesday in Missouri, and a university spokesman said he did not expect the community opposition that the work encountered in California.

“We feel this is going to contribute to a better understanding of how to deal with a major environmental problem,” said Marty Oetting, the university spokesman.

TRUMP-S, which stands for Transuranic Management by Pyropartitioning-Separation, is an effort to separate the most long-lived fractions of nuclear waste from short-lived ones through electrochemical reactions. The idea is to greatly reduce the volume of waste requiring perpetual isolation, making it possible to bury much of the waste in existing low-level radioactive waste dumps.

Rockwell remains responsible for the TRUMP-S work under an agreement with the Japanese nuclear industry that will be worth $8 million to $10 million through 1993. The company will continue to do engineering and chemistry for the project at Santa Susana without using nuclear material, company officials said.

Under the agreement announced Wednesday, the university will carry out the part of the work that involves handling small amounts of plutonium, uranium and other radioactive substances. The university will receive about $2 million to $3 million for that part of the project, a Rockwell official said.

Under contracts with the former Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy, Rockwell once operated small nuclear reactors at Santa Susana and recycled spent nuclear fuel. The several grams of plutonium involved in TRUMP-S is considerably less than the amount Rockwell formerly handled in the hot lab.

Paul Sewell, spokesman for Rockwell’s Rocketdyne division, which operates the Santa Susana lab, denied that pressure from anti-nuclear opponents caused the company to move the nuclear part of the work. Because Rockwell sought to renew the NRC license only through October, 1990, it eventually had to find another place to complete the contract, Sewell said. And he said the arrangement with the university clears the way for Rockwell to pursue additional TRUMP-S contracts.

“It was a business decision,” Sewell said. “It wasn’t based on the activists, or anything they said or did.”

But Dan Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles-based group that had fought the license renewal, called the move “a great victory and an indication that concerned members of the public can make a real difference.”

Hirsch added that he was “not particularly happy about transferring risk from me to someone else.”

“It made my day, to be honest with you,” but “I hate to see my friends in Missouri be stuck,” said Jon Scott, a resident of Bell Canyon in eastern Ventura County and an intervenor in the license case.

Dr. Richard Saxon of Los Angeles Physicians for Social Responsibility criticized moving the work to a college campus, and questioned the value of TRUMP-S because it is aimed at cutting the volume but not the radioactivity of nuclear waste. Saxon said he was against any project that could help resurrect the nuclear industry, which he called terribly dangerous even if its waste problem were solved.

The nuclear industry has been moribund for years, due to cost overruns at atomic plants, public fear of nuclear accidents and lack of permanent, safe waste disposal.

But advocates of nuclear power hope it will win environmental acceptance as concern grows about carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels causing a greenhouse effect and as better ways are found to manage nuclear wastes.

When the hot lab license lapsed last June, Rockwell first applied for a 10-year renewal. But facing community opposition and limited business for the hot lab, the company last fall amended the request, asking for a one-year renewal to do the TRUMP-S work through October.

But most opponents of the 10-year relicensing request also fought the one-year renewal, contending that the public would be at risk if plutonium escaped during the TRUMP-S work.

Rockwell said late last year that it would seek an alternative site for TRUMP-S, but in the meantime fought for the right to start the project in the hot lab this spring.

Sewell disclosed Wednesday that Rockwell had looked at more than 100 different facilities in the United States before reaching an agreement with the University of Missouri. In a news release, the university said it edged out the University of Michigan for the TRUMP-S work.

Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft, Missouri’s Republican Sens. John C. Danforth and Christopher Bond, and Rep. Harold L. Volkmer (D-Mo.) all wrote to Rockwell in January, urging the company to pick the school, according to letters released by Rockwell.