Judgment Fails to Mollify Rockwell’s Critics
The announcement Monday that Rockwell International has admitted to improper handling of hazardous waste up on “the hill”--as Simi Valley residents refer to the company’s Rocketdyne Santa Susana test facility--did little to quell long-standing community fears and resentment.
“This confirms our worst suspicions,” said Barbara Johnson, who lives just below the Rocketdyne facility in the Santa Susana Knolls neighborhood. “In the past we’ve been accused of being a little bit paranoid of them, but this confirms that we have had grounds for our lack of trust in the company.”
Acknowledging a “corporate failure,” the firm accepted responsibility Monday for the deaths of two scientists, Larry A. Pugh, 51, of Thousand Oaks and Otto K. Heiney, 53, of Canoga Park, who were killed in an chemical blast at the 2,700-acre hilltop facility July 26, 1994. A third scientist was seriously hurt in the explosion, which Rockwell representatives initially described as an experiment.
Cal/OSHA investigators later concluded that the scientists were actually blowing up hazardous waste to dispose of it when the explosion occurred. Rockwell agreed to plead guilty to three felony counts for improper storage and handling of hazardous waste and to pay the federal government a $6.5-million fine.
One activist called the fine merely a “slap on the wrist” and called for the government to cancel its contracts with the corporation.
“We’ll send someone to prison for life if they have done a couple of burglaries, but a company that engages in a massive environmental felony which results in two deaths gets the equivalent of a slap on the wrist,” said Dan Hirsch, who heads the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a citizens watchdog group that monitors Rockwell’s activities.
Hirsch said the fine may have been the largest in California history for a crime relating to hazardous waste disposal, but it pales in comparison both to the company’s overall revenues and the $18.5-million judgment handed down against Rockwell for illegally dumping nuclear waste at its Colorado facility.
“This is the equivalent of a $50 fine for you or me,” Hirsch said.
Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said he wasn’t surprised by the guilty pleas.
“Somebody somewhere made an error in judgment and the company is trying to make up for it,” Stratton said.
Whether the penalties the company will pay are big enough, Stratton couldn’t say.
“No amount of money is going to bring back anybody’s life,” he said. “To me that is the real problem. You can never replace a human being.”
“In my dealings with Rocketdyne, at the management level they seem to really believe that they are doing things right, but you just don’t know what happens further on down the chain of command. I don’t know if we will ever know the whole story,” he said.
Looming over Simi Valley, the Santa Susana facility has served for years as a center for hazardous experiments--space program rockets, lasers and nuclear test reactors, one of which partially melted down.
“There is a certain uneasiness that comes from it,” Stratton acknowledged.
That uneasiness led residents to start pushing hard for a health study on past Rocketdyne employees several years ago. Their efforts were successful, and a mortality study is currently underway by a team of UCLA researchers, who are looking at cancer rates and other illnesses that could be attributed to working with chemicals on “the hill.”
The study is being overseen by an advisory panel, which includes Johnson and Hirsch. Members of the panel say they believe Rockwell has not been helpful enough in supplying data and old records to the UCLA researchers.
“The reality is, we still haven’t seen it all,” said Dr. Caesar Julian, a physician who has treated many Rockwell employees during his 30 years in Simi Valley. “We have reason to believe that there is still some material that would be useful.”
The guilty plea may give the group more ammunition against the company, panel members said.
“I just feel that it makes our case against them a little stronger that they are not doing things as they should have been,” Johnson said. “Not only have they been sloppy housekeepers, they have violated trust.”
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Rockwell International agrees to pay fines in fatal 1994 chemical blast. A1
Staff writer Mack Reed contributed to this report.
