Rocketdyne Head Issues an Apology to Residents

Rocketdyne President Paul Smith has mailed a letter to 530 neighbors of the firm’s Santa Susana Field Lab, offering explanations for the 1994, chemical explosion that killed two scientists there and brought felony charges and a $6.5-million fine against the company.

“I want you to know that we fully accept responsibility for the accident,” said the letter, dated April 18, repeating comments Smith made after the company pleaded guilty in federal court April 8 to charges of illegal disposal and storage of hazardous waste.

Just before physicists Otto K. Heiney and Larry A. Pugh were killed in the blast, Rocketdyne was trying to refine the way its Chemical Technology Department was run, the letter said. One of the tasks involved was to classify the explosive chemicals the company made and used.

Smith’s letter says Rocketdyne workers told internal investigators that Pugh and Heiney were running legitimate tests for that purpose. But federal investigators later learned that the men were killed while illegally burning the highly explosive chemicals to dispose of them.

Rocketdyne shut down the department for good, got out of the business of making such chemicals, set up a long-term safety-training program and inventoried all hazardous materials at the rugged 2,700-acre field lab, Smith’s letter states.

Smith’s letter met with mixed reactions from residents.

“He has nothing to lose, so he’s trying to take advantage of the fact and put the best face on it since it’s already been exposed,” said Jerome Raskin, who serves on a citizens environmental watchdog committee that monitors Rocketdyne.