Pact Gives State Wide Access to Monitor Energy Dept. Labs

State health inspectors seeking to monitor the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons and energy research operations in California will be given broad new access to laboratories and documents under an agreement signed Thursday by state and federal officials.

The agreement also calls for federal funding of the state’s heightened role and could lead to a sophisticated study of disease patterns around a privately run Department of Energy lab near Chatsworth that has been the subject of public concern about the release of radioactive materials.

“This is really a giant stride forward,” said Kenneth W. Kizer, director of the state Department of Health Services. “We’re talking about the gamut of information we would need to feel comfortable in ensuring that what is going on is in compliance not only with the laws of California but with what is good public health.”

Among the six sites covered in the agreement is the Energy Technology Engineering Center in the Simi Hills, which is part of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory run by Rockwell International. The lab, which was once a bustling center of nuclear research and still does extensive work for the federal government, recently has been the subject of complaints about its handling of radioactive waste.

Kizer said he hoped the increased state-federal cooperation would lead to federal funding of an epidemiological study to determine if any of the lab’s activities have caused disease in the surrounding community.

“That’s one of the things we are negotiating right now, to see about getting some resources to do that because of the questions that have been raised,” Kizer said. “It could well evolve out of this.”

Also covered by the pact are five sites in Northern California: the Lawrence and Sandia Livermore laboratories, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and the Laboratory for Energy-Related Health Research in Davis.

The federal government has agreed to contribute nearly $400,000 in the first year and a total of about $10 million over five years to hire inspectors and staffers for the Health Services Department, the state Office of Emergency Services and the Regional Water Quality Control boards.

Kizer said his department has found it difficult to enforce state regulations at the labs because state inspectors have been unable to get on the grounds of the facilities. Access to records documenting contamination of the air, ground and water also has been restricted, Kizer said.

But a year ago, prompted in part by public outcry over the management of the nuclear weapons facility at Hanford, Wash., Energy Secretary James D. Watkins began a program to open the department’s operations to greater outside scrutiny.

“What we hope to do now is make our facilities totally open,” said Donald Pearman, San Francisco operations manager for the Department of Energy.

Pearman said national security considerations could limit the state’s access in rare instances. But he said most of the time the state inspectors, who will receive security clearances after being subjected to background checks, will have complete access. They may, however, be restricted in what they can reveal to the public.