SIMI VALLEY : Worker Health Study Is Focus of Meeting

An advisory panel overseeing a worker health study at Rockwell International’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory--once the site of extensive nuclear testing--will hold public meetings today and Friday on the progress of the study.

The purpose of the $840,000 worker health study, which was commissioned last year by the U. S. Department of Energy, is to determine if there have been unusually high incidents of cancer and other illnesses among workers over the years due to chemical and radiological exposure.

Since 1989, Rockwell has been engaged in an ongoing cleanup operation of mostly low-level chemical and radioactive contamination at the lab from more than 30 years of nuclear research. The lab ceased all of its nuclear operations in the late 1980s.

Rockwell officials have maintained for years that there has never been a significant release of contaminants at the lab.

The advisory panel, which consists of community representatives and scientists, will hold two meetings today on the study’s progress at the Clarion Hotel, 1775 Madera Road, Simi Valley, a spokesman with the California Department of Health Services said.

The first portion of the meeting will run from 1 to 5 p.m., and the evening portion will run from 7 to 9 p.m. Dr. Alice Stewart, a member of the advisory panel and a world-renowned authority on the effects of low-level radiation, is scheduled to speak at tonight’s session.

On Friday, the advisory panel will hold a final public meeting at the hotel from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.