Boxer Alleges Nuclear Waste Sent to Dumps

Radioactive material from a former nuclear test facility has been dumped at two Los Angeles County landfills that lack appropriate safeguards to protect the health and safety of neighbors, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer said Thursday.

But officials at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Chatsworth flatly reject those assertions, saying that the company has never dumped radioactive waste at local landfills.

The California Democrat said radioactive material from the hilltop lab has been shipped to the Calabasas Landfill and to the Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills as part of an ongoing federal cleanup effort. The Department of Energy has acknowledged that waste with a level of radioactivity deemed safe for general disposal was sent to the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley, Boxer said.

“These landfills, often situated near neighborhoods and without sophisticated monitoring systems, are not suitable for disposal sites for radioactive materials,” Boxer said. “Radioactive waste collected from highly contaminated sites must not be handled like the trash collected from our kitchens.”

The senator said she learned that radioactive waste had been dumped in Calabasas and Granada Hills from Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham in his response to her letter requesting information about Rocketdyne’s radioactive waste disposal process. In the letter, dated June 28, Abraham said that soil and debris from the Rocketdyne lab are shipped off-site for disposal.

Radioactive materials with levels above the federal and state safety standards are shipped to facilities in Utah, Nevada or Washington, the letter said.

If the material’s level of radioactivity is below federal and state standards, it is disposed of at local sanitary or hazardous waste landfills, according to Abraham’s letter.

Soil and debris, as well as trash from the lab’s office areas, have been shipped to the Bradley, Calabasas and Sunshine landfills, Abraham said, adding: “The level of radioactivity is so low, the equivalent of about two chest X-rays, that disposal in these types of landfills is protective of public health and the environment.”

Boxer maintains, however, that any level of radiation is too much, said spokesman David Sandretti.

“Radioactive waste should be disposed of in a proper setting, and a local landfill is not a proper setting,” he said.

Rocketdyne officials don’t dispute that the waste went to the landfills, but they insist it wasn’t radioactive or dangerous.

“Any cleanup at the site has met all release criteria--only normal trash from office areas has been sent to the three landfills,” said Steve Lafflam, Rocketdyne’s division director for safety, health and environmental affairs.

Lafflam said Rocketdyne takes public health issues seriously and would not do anything to violate its trust with the community, but that “a few individuals with a broader agenda want to use Santa Susana as a pivot point for a national debate” on environmental regulatory issues.