Activists Schedule Hearing on Rocketdyne Lab Concerns

Anxious to launch a health study of neighborhoods surrounding Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana field lab, activists have called a community meeting Wednesday night for residents to tell their concerns to state legislators and local officials.

The Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition hopes to press the state Legislature for action and money to study whether decades of nuclear and rocket research at the 2,668-acre open-air field lab caused cancer or property damage in the Simi and San Fernando valleys.

The coalition called the 7 p.m. meeting at Rancho Santa Susana Community Center in light of a recent UCLA health study that found an increased risk of cancer death among Rocketdyne workers. The center is at 5005-C Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley.

“We want to make sure we’re not hysterical about the problems,” said Joseph Lyou, a member of Committee to Bridge the Gap, which works with the coalition. “There’s just a sense of too many unknowns right now for there to be any real sense of comfort in the community. Our hope is that the problems are not as bad as our worst fears, but until we get the data, we don’t know.”

Rocketdyne spokesman Dan Beck said the firm probably will not send a representative to the meeting. “I don’t believe we received an invitation on that,” he said. “Without any invitation, clearly we’re not wanted there.”

But Lyou says the coalition expects local, county, state and federal officials, including Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton, state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) and U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), will either attend or send representatives to the meeting.

Stratton said that if a community health study is feasible, the U.S. government should pay for it because it financed most of Rocketdyne’s research into rocket engines for space missions and nuclear reactors for the Atomic Energy Commission and U.S. Department of Energy.