Rocketdyne Gets Contract to Clean Up Site
The U. S. Department of Energy on Tuesday awarded Rocketdyne a multiyear $148.5-million contract for the cleanup of contaminated water, soil and buildings at its own Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
Federal officials and Rocketdyne representatives hailed the contract, which runs through 2006, as a cost-efficient way to scrub clean the Energy Technology Engineering Center. That complex--government-leased land where scientists conducted nuclear research during the Cold War--sits on 90 acres in the rugged Santa Susana Mountains near Simi Valley.
“One of my top priorities for the department includes safe, effective and expeditious cleanup at DOE sites,” Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Tuesday in a prepared release. “The new contract will strictly focus on environment, and health and safety of the workers and the public.”
But a critic of Boeing North American Inc., Rocketdyne’s parent company, said that giving the contract to the aerospace giant without seeking competitive bids was a farce.
“If I recall, the entity that made the mess was Rocketdyne under contract for the Department of Energy,” said Rocketdyne critic Joseph K. Lyou, executive director of the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap. “Now the government is taking taxpayers’ dollars to pay that polluter, Rocketdyne, an enormous amount of money to clean the mess they made. What a sham.”
While saying she was delighted with the contract award, U. S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in a prepared statement that she hoped that government agencies could also scrape together dollars to study the health of community members near the open-air field lab.
Many Rocketdyne neighbors blame the company’s activities for their health problems. A recent UCLA study that found higher-than-expected cancer death rates among some Rocketdyne employees added to community concerns.
“I regret the fact that the [energy] department is not able to fund the 1998 community health study project but has requested that the Department of Health and Human Services consider doing so,” said Feinstein, a California Democrat. “I believe it is important that these health studies be finished. . . .”
After four decades of energy development research--from nuclear to solar power--the site is tainted with radioactive materials and toxics.
In particular, ground water is contaminated with the cancer-causing agent trichloroethylene. The site, closed for cleanup since 1995, is also peppered with the contaminants mercury, petroleum hydrocarbons, dioxin and cesium-137.
Research at the site “was done under [energy department] contract, paid for by government dollars, for the public benefit,” said Dan Beck, Rocketdyne spokesman.
“It was research and development into reactors and nuclear energy used by the U. S. government, not for the commercial benefit of Rocketdyne,” he said. “The DOE is under contractual obligation to pay for the cleanup at that site. This is not a case of Rocketdyne making an environmental mess for profit and asking the taxpayers to pay for it.”
The energy department-leased land is a small part of Rocketdyne’s 2,700-acre Santa Susana Field Lab, itself the site of a separate, $59-million multiyear cleanup.
The energy department granted Rocketdyne the new contract on a noncompetitive, “sole-source” basis that, officials estimate, will save between $20 million and $50 million. Rocketdyne was able to conduct a cheaper cleanup because it already has the required permits, equipment and utilities for the work and owns the land that the government was leasing.
The aerospace company was able to whittle the government’s costs by agreeing to continue ground-water cleanup after government officials leave in return for ownership of some valuable hardware, including a building full of “shaking tables” that simulate earthquake conditions, energy department officials said.
The “performance-based” contract pays Rocketdyne a certain amount when cleanup milestones are reached. The contract calls for the demolition of seven contaminated buildings, ground-water cleanup and monitoring, soil characterization and cleanup, safe storage of radioactive wastes until properly disposed of off-site, and complete removal of chemicals and radioactive materials from the site.
“This is a very good thing for us; it helps us keep moving forward with cleanup activities, . . ,” Beck said. “It won’t be Rocketdyne employees doing the cleanup work per se. We’ll be managing it. We’ll have subcontractors in there actually doing the pick and shovel work.”
After the cleanup, Rocketdyne will get to keep the remaining buildings and the hardware--purchased for nearly $500 million, but now worth much less--that government officials cannot sell for scrap.
“It was clear this was the best bang for the buck for the government,” said Roger H. Liddle, director of the energy department’s Environmental Restoration Office in Oakland. “This was a substantial savings over what we estimated it would cost to bring in a third party. We’ve really done our homework here.”
The cleanup project will continue to be scrutinized by a host of government agencies, including the federal Environmental Protection Agency, state Department of Toxic Substances Control and Regional Water Quality Control Board, Liddle said. The site must eventually meet all applicable environmental and health regulations.
“I don’t think anyone ever envisions homes up there,” he said. “But we’ll clean it up to the regulatory levels and in a manner consistent with the rest of the site.”
