Residents Criticize Pollution Study

Concerned residents Thursday attacked a plan to investigate chemical pollution at Rocketdyne’s rugged field laboratory near Simi Valley, saying the company was allowed to design its study without public input.

The California Environmental Protection Agency is to oversee the investigation that will be carried out by Ogden Environmental and Energy Services Inc., a contractor hired by Rocketdyne.

Ogden is to spend about six months testing soil, water and air samples to determine how badly Rocketdyne’s activities have polluted the 2,668-acre open-air field lab during the last 50 years.

Rocketdyne then has until 2002 to clean up any pollution and win final state certification before it will be allowed to continue operating the facility.

During a meeting Thursday night at Simi Valley City Hall, members of the Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition accused Cal/EPA of waiting too long to reveal Rocketdyne’s plan to the public--long after the company had tailored the environmental study plan to its own needs.

And they criticized Cal/EPA officials for giving the company the go-ahead to start taking samples today without letting homeowners, who live near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, help guide the study.

“This looks like a closed-door deal with the public frozen out,” said Daniel Hirsch, an antinuclear activist and coalition member. “Why in God’s name would you issue the approval [for the study] six days ago and then hold a public meeting?”

Tom Mays, an official with Cal/EPA’s department of toxic substances and control, replied that there is no legal requirement to allow public input for the study at this point. However, the agency will consider public criticism, and Rocketdyne has offered bus tours of the site to concerned residents.

That offer prompted several in the audience of about 60 to scoff under their breaths during the meeting, which was often marred by bickering and accusations from the residents.

Rocketdyne’s predecessor, North American Aviation, opened the lab in 1946 and over the years has tested prototypes for nearly every rocket engine used in the U.S. space program. Rocketdyne scientists and engineers used a broad range of toxic chemicals and metals, ranging from jet fuel and acids to carcinogenic solvents and radioactive isotopes.

Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International, also operated 16 small nuclear reactors on the site between the late 1940s and the early 1980s--one of which suffered a partial meltdown, damaging 13 of the 43 radioactive fuel rods.

The company ended its nuclear work sometime after 1990, the year it closed down its so-called “hot lab” for extracting plutonium from spent fuel and moved the operation to Missouri.

Traces of toxins, such as trichloroethylene, and low-level radiation found in ground water in and around the site have been linked to Rocketdyne tests.

The company has been waging an aggressive cleanup campaign but continues to draw controversy.

The neighboring Brandeis-Bardin Institute sued Rocketdyne last December after ground water beneath the institute’s eastern Simi Valley campus was found to contain low levels of radioactive tritium and carcinogenic chemicals.

Last spring, Rocketdyne agreed to pay a record $6.5-million federal fine for waste-disposal violations after a 1994 explosion killed two company scientists who were blowing up waste to get rid of it.

The FBI is still looking into possible criminal charges against other Rocketdyne employees in connection with the blast.

As Thursday’s meeting wore on, cleanup coalition members criticized Cal/EPA for backing out of a promise to give them copies of letters to and from Rocketdyne about the upcoming study and instead making them available only in public libraries. They also urged officials to let Rocketdyne’s neighbors take part in overseeing the soil monitoring.

“How about letting members of the public come in with the officials who are observing the people who are taking the samples?” asked Sheldon Plotkin, an environmental engineer and coalition member.

Cal/EPA geologist Craig Christmann said that would not be possible for several reasons. The Rocketdyne lab is private property, and members of the public do not have adequate safety training.

*

However, he said that his agency will independently test samples taken by Ogden to ensure accurate results.

This spurred Hirsch to slam the agency for agreeing to cut a list of 122 potential sample sites to only 34 simply because Rocketdyne had already provided test data for those areas.

Several neighbors criticized Cal/EPA for letting Rocketdyne choose its own testing firm, one likening it to “letting the fox guard the henhouse.”

Hirsch said that Rocketdyne could not be trusted, citing last spring’s guilty plea to felony waste disposal violations. But Christmann said that the government cannot force its own consultant on a private contractor for a pre-licensing study.