Santa Susana Field Lab with Denise Duffield

Oct 27, 2019

What do we know about the Santa Susana Field Lab? It depends who you ask. In this episode I interview Denise Duffield, Associate Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. There are a few PDFs I was not able to attach to these notes. I did offer to have Boeing part of the show and they declined. Please find links where you can do further research.

The timing of the show is critical as NASA wants to break out of the cleanup agreement they entered in 2010. Info on public hearings is:

Best Western Posada Royale,
Wednesday, November 20th, 2019
from 6:30–8:30 p.m., 1775 Madera
Road, Simi Valley, CA 93065

Corporate Pointe at West Hill,
Thursday, November 21st, 2019 from
6:30–8:30 p.m., 8411 Fallbrook
Avenue, West Hills, CA 91304

The notice says that written comments due around Dec. 9, via email to [e-mail]  

 

This website from 2017 has good background on SSFL history (and history of cleanup agreements) as well as Boeing's greenwashing, (Boeing's effort to claim that cleaning up the site will do more harm to the environment) and also a map that shows the operational areas of the site for DOE, NASA, and Boeing see https://www.protectsantasusanafromboeing.com/faq/

 

Another good article for background on SSFL's nuclear past, and on the Woolsey Fire, is https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/a-failure-of-governmental-candor-the-fire-at-the-contaminated-santa-susana-field-laboratory/

 

And here is the Parents vs SSFL Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/PARENTSvsSSFL/

which will always have the most current news and actions.

On Boeing's website, they write "Since acquiring its portion of the Simi Hills site from Rocketdyne in 1996, Boeing has made significant progress with cleanup and restoration. The company secured the future of nearly 2,400 acres as permanent open space habitat to benefit wildlife and the community, fulfilling a commitment made 10 years ago. The transformation of Santa Susana from field laboratory to open space is well underway, with native plants and animals reclaiming most of the previously developed areas of the property."

In disagreement with this statement, a year ago, Pacific Magazine wrote, "Fifty years later, the contaminated site has yet to be cleaned up, although this month two federal agencies promised to plow ahead without the site's current owner, Boeing. And in March, the Department of Energy provided $38.3 million in funds to complete the radiologic survey of "Area IV" as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act." This isn't accurate today, as Boeing continues to dodge cleaning up the site to high standards, and the Department of Energy and NASA want out of their agreement from 2010 Administrative Orders of Consent since Boeing is fighting to live up to those standards. Boeing is proposing to clean the site to a "recreational" standard, which could leave up to 98% of the contaminants, as opposed to a "residential" standard, clean enough to build homes on.

If you want to take action, you can attend the public meetings in November, contact government officials Henry Stern, Christy Smith, Brad Sherman and Julia Brownley.

You can also get information from Parents vs. SSFL and Rocketdyne Clean Up Coalition.