Groups Plan to Sue Agency Over Lab Cleanup

Two environmental groups announced Monday that they intended to sue the Department of Energy for allegedly violating federal law in its cleanup of nuclear and chemical contamination at Boeing’s Rocketdyne field laboratory near Chatsworth.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Committee to Bridge the Gap say the Energy Department’s cleanup plan for the site -- where U.S. agencies conducted nuclear research over four decades -- would leave dangerous levels of radioactive material and other toxic chemicals in the soil at the field lab.

Energy Department officials have said that the site, where a nuclear reactor meltdown occurred in 1959, would pose no significant threat to human health or the environment after it is cleaned up to at least minimum standards for radioactive contamination set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But critics and watchdog groups have demanded that a full environmental impact review be conducted.

The Energy Department has 60 days to comply with the law or the groups will file a lawsuit in federal court, said Howard Crystal, an attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based council and Bridge the Gap, an anti-nuclear group based in Los Angeles.

The outcome of a lawsuit could have implications far beyond the 2,700-acre hilltop lab because the Energy Department operates many other contaminated nuclear and chemical sites around the country.

“We’re making good progress cleaning up the ... site in an environmentally safe and sound manner,” said John Belluardo, a spokesman for the Energy Department in Oakland. “We do not agree with those that wish to slow down cleanup by threatening to file lawsuits. DOE will review the letter and decide if any response is necessary.”

Boeing Co. officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Although the Energy Department’s operations at Rocketdyne comprised only a portion of the work conducted at the lab, its legacy of nuclear and chemical contamination could affect public health for generations, said Dan Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap.

“I think [DOE officials] are sacrificing public health for cost savings,” he said. “The Bush administration has a tremendous hostility to living up to its environmental responsibilities. So it’s partially to save money and partially an antipathy to environmental protections.”

In a 12-page letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, the two groups demanded the agency prepare a more strict environmental review.

“Given that one of the only reactor meltdowns in the world occurred at this site ... and the cleanup of the radioactive contamination ... is budgeted at approximately a quarter of a billion dollars, it is apparent this cleanup is a ‘major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment’ and therefore requiring an EIS,” the letter states.

Specifically, the groups say the Energy Department is in violation of the National Environmental Protection Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act; and the Endangered Species Act.

Through an environmental impact statement, the two groups are demanding that the department address recent findings of high levels of radioactive tritium, the solvents trichloroethylene and perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel and found in deep, nonpotable groundwater wells on and near the lab site.

The groups say that the Environmental Protection Agency determined last year that the Energy Department’s plan to leave 99% of the contaminated soil in place would leave far too much radioactivity behind to meet federal standards for unrestricted land use.

The groups say the Energy Department is in violation of a joint policy it adopted in 1995 with the EPA, agreeing to clean up all nuclear sites to the same high standards as those required by federal Superfund sites. Santa Susana Field Lab is not a Superfund site.

The environmental groups also say there are several endangered species on the site that have not been taken into account in the current cleanup plan, as required under federal law. The only species mentioned is Braunton’s milkvetch, a small plant that grows in the California chaparral.

From the 1950s to 1989, the Energy Department, NASA and the Defense Department conducted nuclear experiments at the field lab. A test reactor suffered a partial meltdown at the site in 1959.

Although the accident was not widely publicized until 20 years later, company officials said later that there had been no danger to the public or workers.

Former employees and nearby residents have filed lawsuits against Boeing, alleging contamination at the plant led to illness and death of relatives. Those lawsuits are pending in federal court.