Study Finds No Increased Cancer Risk Near Lab

Residents living near Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory face no increased risk of cancer associated with radiation exposure from three decades of nuclear energy tests, according to a state health report released Friday.

The two-year study by the state Department of Health Services was angrily rejected by residents and environmental activists who said researchers did not have enough data to draw any conclusions about the health risks for residents living near the laboratory southeast of here near the Los Angeles County border.

“It is not appropriate for people to rely on the study,” said Dan Hirsch, a member of a community group overseeing cleanup operations of low-level radioactive contamination at the lab. “The conclusions go beyond the data.”

For the last decade, residents in Los Angeles and Ventura counties near the lab have been concerned about long-range exposure to Rocketdyne’s testing of components for nuclear power plants. From 1948 to the late 1980s, the lab was a major center of nuclear research for the U.S. Department of Energy.

In recent years, neighbors have protested against the lab, prompting state health officials to review cancer data in the area.

Health officials acknowledged that the cancer study was limited in its scope because little cancer data was available for the areas around the Rocketdyne plant. But based on the information that was collected, they said they found no reason to suspect an increase in cancer rates among people living within a five-mile radius of the lab.

“We don’t see anything unusual for people living near the laboratory developing certain cancers compared to people living elsewhere,” said Peggy Reynolds, an epidemiologist with the state Department of Health Services.

The department’s 19-page report released Friday was a follow-up to a preliminary analysis conducted last year of neighborhoods east of the lab in Los Angeles County.

The earlier analysis found higher-than-normal rates of bladder cancer for residents who lived in three housing tracts in Canoga Park and Chatsworth than for Los Angeles County as a whole. The cancer data, which included incidences of cancer reported in the area from 1983 to 1987, was part of an overall study of the health of residents within five miles of the lab.

Unlike the preliminary analysis, the study released Friday considered rates for various types of cancer in census tracts in Ventura County, too. The data showed no abnormal bladder cancer rates among the residents surveyed.