CA rejects Superfund listing for Rocketdyne site

[ColbertWatcher]

From the Los Angeles Times
California rejects Superfund listing for Rocketdyne site
The state holds out for its own stricter cleanup standards for the former rocket engine and nuclear testing facility near Chatsworth and Simi Valley. Activists are pleased.
By Catherine Saillant
January 13, 2009

California's top environmental cop Monday rejected an offer to list the contaminated Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab near Simi Valley as a federal Superfund cleanup site, saying the state can do the job quicker and more thoroughly.

Linda Adams, secretary for environmental protection, said she was concerned that a federal listing would allow the three parties responsible for removing toxic substances from the 2,850-acre former rocket engine and nuclear testing facility to skirt stricter cleanup standards set forth in recently passed state legislation.

Enacted last year, Senate Bill 990 requires lab owner Boeing, the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA to clean the hilltop property to a level suitable for residential and agricultural use.

Residents near the hilltop facility had long pushed for such a standard, fearing that anything less would subject them to downstream health risks associated with soil contaminated by years of rocket and nuclear testing.

--(plenty more where that came from) Los Angeles Times

In 1959, America experienced its very first nuclear accident in Santa Susanahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory">1. Prior to that, it was a test site for rockets and various military weapons systems.

The location was chosen for its "remoteness," however, that has changed. The sprawling San Fernando Valley, that densely populated area more commonly known as "the Valley (you know?)," has creeped ever so closely to--not just the physical above ground facility--but to the underground water supply contaminated by all those years of testing and waste and neglect.

And denial by Rocketdyne.

Last year the Department of Energy tried to halt the clean-up2. Then, when that didn't work, the E"P"A decided that water containing the rocket-fuel chemical "perchlorate" was perfectly fine to drink3.

Just how bad is the contamination in and around the area ("pollution" is too a kind word for the environmental damage done in this area) no one knows.

There is no way to measure how much, toxins were dumped into the water table, the air or the land over the years. There is also no way to know how far away the contamination has spread. Or how many people have been effected.

The first battle over cleaning Santa Susana was over whether something even happened. Now, it's between the citizens and the corporate owners and their friends in government over how bad it is and how much needs to be cleaned.

And the denial continues.

[Clovis Sangrail]

1. a lot of cancer in the valley

whether Rocketdyne has anything to do with is something that's been simmering for years.
:shrug:

[ColbertWatcher]

2. It's hard to tell.

But, we'll never know if Rocketdyne (and Boeing) are allowed to continue their stonewalling.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. My area has a perchlorate problem also- Odd thing....Mars' soil is full of perchlorate

I'm near Vandenberg and we have a supersite around here too.





The Mars soil story...

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has found traces of perchlorate in two soil samples analyzed during the past month, the space agency announced today. The results appeared to be the same ones rumored this weekend by AviationWeek.com to have been seen by the White House and to reflect Mars's habitability for life.

Perchlorate, or ClO4, is a naturally occurring and man-made chemical that is the primary ingredient in solid rocket fuel, according to the EPA. Where such a contaminant might have come from is unclear. The fuel in the thrusters that Phoenix used to land on Mars was made of hydrazine, not perchlorate.

The presence of such a chemically reactive compound in Martian soil would seem to make that soil less supportive of life. Here on Earth, high doses of perchlorate can interfere with thyroid hormone production, which can harm babies in the womb.

Phoenix's MECA wet chemistry experiment detected the chemical. NASA said the Phoenix team was waiting for the craft's gas analyzer, TEGA, to confirm the finding. The agency said that results from a TEGA experiment on Sunday, which analyzed a sample take from directly above the soil's ice layer,

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Was the perchlorate found on Mars from our rockets or naturally occuring?

The levels of perchlorate in and around the Santa Susana site are outrageously off the charts http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/172265/toxins_found_miles_from_santa_susana_lab/

Also, the current occupants of the White House put pressure on the E"P"A not to "set a drinking-water safety standard for perchlorate"Washington Post