SIMI VALLEY : Cleanup of Waste Dump at Rockwell Plant Resumes

Officials at Rockwell International’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory southeast of Simi Valley said Thursday they have resumed cleanup of an old waste dump after delays caused by conflicting orders from environmental agencies.

Steve Lafflam, director of environmental protection for Rockwell’s Rocketdyne division, said the company late last week began excavating soil from the contested area of the old dump, known as the sodium burn pit, because tests have shown that the new treatment system will separate the mixed hazardous and radioactive wastes that are buried there.

Lafflam said he expects the firm to lease the mobile treatment device, which would be delivered on flatbed trucks and erected at the Santa Susana test site.

The name of the system’s developer would not be disclosed until a contract is signed, he said.

Removal of the two-acre burn pit is part of a $44-million cleanup of contaminated soil, ground water and buildings in a 290-acre area of the field lab where Rockwell performed nuclear work for the U. S. Department of Energy and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, for three decades.

In what Rockwell officials had described as a “Catch-22 situation,” the company halted the state-ordered removal of soil from a portion of the burn pit more than two months ago to avoid violating federal rules controlling mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes.

State officials have given Rockwell until Dec. 31 to finish cleaning up a part of the burn pit that contains up to 300 cubic yards--roughly 20 dump truckloads--of mixed wastes.