Simi Valley

— MSNBC, November 14 – “In the Dark of the Valley” on Santa Susana Field Laboratory

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From MSNBC

November 14, 2022
10 PM ET

IN THE DARK OF THE VALLEY

A Southern California mother discovers that the Santa Susana Field Lab, the site of one of the largest nuclear accidents in U.S. history, is located only 7 miles from her home. Concealed from the public eye for 20 years and never fully cleaned up, she grapples with the idea that the site may be responsible for exposing her daughter and community to cancer-causing radioactive waste. The feature documentary, directed by Nicholas Mihm, airs Sunday, November 14th at 10 p.m. ET on MSNBC.

https://www.msnbc.com/darkofthevalley

Trailer: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/-in-the-dark-of-the-valley-official-trailer-123022917987

https://data.nbcstations.com/national/KNBC/la-nuclear-secret/
LA’s Nuclear Secret

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Nuclear Hotseat: New study on Santa Susana Field Lab radioactive fallout from Woolsey Fire; PSR-LA’s Denise Duffield, Melissa Bumstead – NH #541

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From Nuclear Hotseat
November 3, 2021
by Libbe HaLevy

Santa Susana Field Lab Fallout from Woolsey Fire Study of Radioactive Releases – Melissa Bumstead (above) of Parents Against SSFL.

This Week’s Featured Interviews:

Santa Susana Field Lab – the push to clean up the 2,680 acre site continues in the wake of findings about the Woolsey fire releasing radioactive micro-particles into the surrounding Los Angeles neighborhoods.  One of the ongoing people helping to lead the fight is Denise Duffield.  She serves as Administrator for Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA’s (PSR-LA) and directs its nuclear threats program, which advocates for health protective policies related to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.  Denise also works on environmental health and justice issues, addressing the needs of local communities who are impacted by toxic contamination and the failure of regulatory agencies to protect them. She leads PSR-LA’s efforts to ensure a full cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL).

Melissa Bumstead lives within 3.6 miles of the Santa Susana Field Lab.  She became an “accidental activist” for the SSFL cleanup after her four year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia in 2014. She founded Parents Against SSFL and continues to lead community efforts for a complete clean-up of the Boeing – former Rocketdyne – site.  (Her daughter is now 11 years old and cancer-free.)

nuclearhotseat.com/2021/11/03/santa-susana-field-lab-woolsey-fire-radiation-study/

“Worst nuclear disaster in US history” — MSNBC airs documentary about Santa Susana Field Lab nationwide on Nov. 14; Screening in Ojai on Nov. 5

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From Physicians for Social Responsibility

MSNBC has acquired “In the Dark of the Valley,” an award-winning documentary film that chronicles the lives of a group of mothers turned advocates (Parents vs SSFL) who come face to face with corporate interests and governmental apathy in their fight to clean up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL.) The film will air nationwide on Sunday November 14 at 10 pm EST.  SSFL is a former nuclear and rocket-engine testing site located in the hills above the Simi and San Fernando valleys that remains heavily polluted with toxic contamination. 

PSR-LA Board President Dr. Robert Dodge and Associate Director Denise Duffield are featured throughout the documentary, working alongside community members and organizational allies as we have for over 30 years. We urge our members and supporters to view this important, poignant, and moving film.

In the Dark of the Valley has also been racking up awards on the film festival circuit, winning Best Documentary at the Phoenix Film Festival, the Catalina Film Festival, and Best Feature Documentary, Best Director, and Best Editing at the Angeles Documentaries. It will also screen at The Ojai Film Festival on Friday November 5 at 10 a.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here. View the film trailer below.

https://www.psr-la.org/new-documentary-film-about-santa-susana-field-lab-features-psr-la/

— 13 February 2020: Santa Susana Field Laboratory cleanup crisis meeting

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CRITICAL SSFL WORK GROUP MEETING
“SSFL CLEANUP CRISIS: FINDING A PATH FORWARD” 
Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center
3050 E. Los Angeles Avenue, Simi Valley, CA 93065

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2020
6:30 p.m. vigil, 7:00 pm meeting
Seating is limited – 

Click here to RSVP today

Guest speaker: CalEPA Jared Blumenfeld

Description

Boeing, the Dept. of Energy, and NASA signed agreements to fully clean up all of SSFL’s contamination by 2017, but the cleanup hasn’t begun. Recently, all three have indicated their intent to break their cleanup agreements and leave most of the contamination on the site permanently. The cleanup is now at an impasse, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

California EPA Secretary Jared Blumenfeld will discuss cleanup efforts on February 13 at a meeting of the SSFL Work Group. The SSFL Work Group was founded in 1989 to educate and engage the community, government agencies, and elected officials in the cleanup. The meeting will include a public Q&A with a panel of experts, community members, and elected officials.

SSFL Work Group Meeting
“SSFL Cleanup Crisis: Finding a Path Forward”
Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center
Thursday, February 13, 2020
6:30 PM Candlelight vigil
7:00 PM SSFL Work Group Meeting

Hosted by SSFL Work Group, Physicians for Social Responsibility- Los Angeles, Committee to Bridge the Gap, Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition and Parents Against SSFL.

— Dangerous radioactive hot particles span the globe

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From Beyond Nuclear International

Citizen scientists are uncovering risks that governments would rather cover up

November 20, 2019

By Cindy Folkers

When reactors exploded and melted down at the Fukushima nuclear power complex in March 2011, they launched radioactivity from their ruined cores into the unprotected environment.  Some of this toxic radioactivity was in the form of hot particles (radioactive microparticles) that congealed and became airborne by attaching to dusts and traveling great distances.

However, the Fukushima disaster is only the most recent example of atomic power and nuclear weapons sites creating and spreading these microparticles. Prior occurrences include various U.S. weapons sites and the ruined Chernobyl reactor. While government and industry cover up this hazard, community volunteer citizen science efforts – collaborations between scientists and community volunteers – are tracking the problem to raise awareness of its tremendous danger in Japan and across the globe.

After the Fukushima nuclear disaster began, one highly radioactive specimen, a particle small enough to inhale or ingest, was found in a private home where it should not have been, hundreds of miles from its source, in a vacuum cleaner bag containing simple house dust.

Fukushima Nagoya map

Continue reading →

— #ValleyVisits: California Sen. Bob Hertzberg thanks Rocketdyne, ignores their toxics and radioactive contamination of Ventura and Los Angeles Counties

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Sen. Bob Hertzberg, nicknamed “Huggy” by colleagues, says he thinks in terms of “the big picture”. [1]

And he visited Aerojet Rocketdyne April 28:

First stop of the day on my #ValleyVisits tour…thank you for telling us about how you bring #SFVJobs. [1a]

But the “big picture” of the extensive contamination done by Rocketdyne at the former Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley doesn’t seem to bother Hertzberg .[2]

WikiMap

Hertzberg has been strangely quiet when experts talk about the devastating impacts of Rocketdyne’s toxic chemicals, like TCE and perchlorate, migrating off-site. Massive amounts of chemicals were burned, dumped into unlined pits, dumped in ravines, and trucked away and dumped in the ocean. These chemicals are spreading and contaminating drinking water wells across the valley and run-off into both Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.

Then there is the massive radioactive contamination from Rocketdyne. In 1959 a serious nuclear accident at SSFL resulted in high levels of radioactivity being vented for weeks, particularly affecting San Fernando Valley residents as well as those of Simi Valley, but without any public notice or evacuations. This was the first of several nuclear accidents there which were kept secret. Radioactive waste was also continually burned and dumped, including plutonium. High levels of radioactive contamination remain on and in the soil. Where is Hertzberg? He isn’t hugging the people of Simi Valley and neighboring communities who are dealing with this issue.

In 2013, a report was published that SSFL clean-up officials were sending highly radioactive waste from the Rocketdyne site to ordinary recycling facilities or dumping it with the knowledge and cooperation of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the California Department of Public Health.[3]

Where was Hertzberg?

In 2014, DOE finally agreed to clean up the contamination, and DTSC promised to enforce that. However, now DOE wants to leave 39-99% of the contamination in place, and it is unclear if DTSC will stand by its promise and compel a complete cleanup.[4] If the contamination is not cleaned up, it will cause growing, generational impacts to people and wildlife – a very, very big picture.

Where is Sen. Hertzberg?

Hertzberg has said:

“Get it done or get the heck out of the way is my philosophy. I start out as a holistic thinker. I’m the big picture, holistic thinker…It really boils down to the issue of getting the work done. I am sick and tired of the noise. Sick and tired of the empty promises.” [5]

“Get it done”? Get what done?

Not the Santa Susana Field Laboratory cleanup. Not accountability. Not recompense for damaged lives. Not standing up for the rights of the public to safety in their homes and in their communities. Not creating new rules for how multinational corporations and public agencies operate in California.

Not leading.

We the public are sick and tired of empty promises, Sen. Hertzberg.

Protect the public, and their health and safety.

Or get the heck out of the way.

—-

Sen. Hertzberg’s website: http://sd18.senate.ca.gov/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hertzberg

[1a] https://twitter.com/SenateHertzberg/status/858031069337178112

[2] http://data.nbcstations.com/national/KNBC/la-nuclear-secret/

http://www.rocketdynecleanupcoalition.org/files/Hirsch%20EPW%20Testimony.pdf

[3] http://committeetobridgethegap.org/SSFLDemolitionAndDisposalStudy.pdf

[4] http://www.rocketdynecleanupcoalition.org/doe-ssfl-eis/

https://youtu.be/NESH4S4ozdQ

https://youtu.be/z51P18Mi_ac

[5] http://www.laweekly.com/news/bob-hertzberg-interview-transcript-2139535

Also:

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/04/21/decades-later-industry-and-regulators-fail-to-clean-up-former-rocket-test-site/   

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/LA-County-Demands-Full-Clean-Up-of-Toxic-Site-Above-the-Valleys-416174833.html

http://www.enviroreporter.com/sinsofrocketdyne/all/1/

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/LA-Nuclear-Secret-Behind-the-Story-328030031.html

http://www.ssflworkgroup.org/ssfl-offsite-contamination-data-presented-at-june-18-work-group-meeting/ — June 18, 2014

http://www.ssflworkgroup.org/ — Santa Susana Field Laboratory Working Group

http://committeetobridgethegap.org/ — Committee to Bridge the Gap

www.rocketdynecleanupcoalition.org — Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition

— Action needed tomorrow at Los Angeles Board of Supervisors on Santa Susana Field Lab cleanup

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From SSFL Working Group

March 13, 2017

The Dept. of Energy’s Broken Promises-
The Fight for Full Cleanup Continues

Action Needed Tomorrow- Come and Testify!
LA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS MEETING
Tuesday, March 14, 9:00 a.m.
Board Hearing Room 381B
Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
550 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

We need you to attend the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting tomorrow to testifyin support of Supervisors Kuehl and Barger.  They are proposing a resolution that demands the Dept. of Energy (DOE) live up to the cleanup standards set by the 2010 cleanup agreement and condemns their current Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for violating it.  We will be meeting there at 9:00 AM.  See address listed above.

If you attended the March 8 meeting, PLEASE MAIL IN YOUR COMMENT CARD.
At the meeting you received a card on which to write your comment on the DOE’s Draft EIS.  If you have not done so already, please finish writing your comment and mail it in.
The deadline for commenting has been postponed to April 13th.  
The address is already printed on the card.  It requires First Class postage (either $0.49 or a Forever stamp).

Thank you to all who attended the March 8th SSFL Work Group meeting- we were delighted to see so many new attendees as well as familiar faces and a few representatives of our elected officials.

A special thanks to Melissa Bumstead, and the other parents and families of the SSFL community inflicted by pediatric cancer, for hosting a beautiful candlelight vigil before the meeting to raise awareness about the health hazards of the contamination migrating offsite into our neighborhoods.

Thank you also to Mohsen Nazemi, Deputy Director of the Department of Toxic Substances Control’s Brownfields and Environmental Restoration Program, for coming and ensuring the community that the Dept. of Toxic Substances Control is committed to enforcing the 2010 cleanup agreement to background that the Dept. of Energy signed.

What You Can Do

Attend the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting tomorrow at 9AM and testify in support of the resolution on SSFL.

Mail in the comment card for the DOE’s DEIS you received if you attended the March 8th Work Group meeting.

Submit a comment demanding that the DOE clean up all contamination at SSFL.

Ask your friends, family, and neighbors to also submit a comment and attend the DOE hearings. Please forward this email and share on social media.

Background

The Department of Energy (DOE) is attempting to break its obligation to clean up all of the nuclear and chemical contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), proposing instead to leave between 30 -99% of the contamination not cleaned up. That is dangerous and unacceptable!

All of the alternatives directly violate the Administrative Order on Consent (AOC) that DOE signed in 2010, which committed them to clean up all detectable contamination. DOE’s DEIS also fails to acknowledge that DOE as the polluter doesn’t have the authority to decide how much of the mess that it made is going to get cleaned up. The decision rests with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, not DOE.

Click here to learn more about key problems with DOE’s DEIS. Click here to read the DEIS itself.

To learn more visit www.ssflworkgroup.org or contact us at info@ssflworkgroup.org. 

— Santa Susanna Field Lab March 8 meeting on DOE’s broken cleanup promises and how to ensure full cleanup

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From the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory Work Group

NEXT SSFL WORK GROUP MEETING
Wednesday, March 8, 6:30 p.m.
Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center
3050 E. Los Angeles Avenue, Simi Valley, CA 93065
The Department of Energy (DOE) recently released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the SSFL cleanup in which every option proposed would breach the legally binding cleanup agreement it signed in 2010 to clean up all contamination at SSFL. DOE now proposes instead to leave between 39% and 99% of the contamination not cleaned up. DOE hearings this week demonstrated public anger at DOE proposing to break its cleanup commitments, but much more is needed to ensure that DOE will uphold its SSFL cleanup commitments.

Please join us on March 8 to learn more about:

  • The Administrative Order on Consent (AOC) agreement that DOE signed to clean up all contamination at SSFL, and how the DOE’s proposals violate it
  • The amounts of contamination that DOE is proposing leaving behind, and the risks associated with the contamination
  • Misinformation put forth by DOE to help it break out of the agreement
  • How the community can help ensure a full cleanup of SSFL

We look forward to seeing you on March 8th for some straight talk about SSFL.

PS. If you haven’t yet, please submit a comment demanding that DOE honor its commitment to clean up all contamination at SSFL, and ask your friends, family, and neighbors to do so as well.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), also known as Rocketdyne, is a former nuclear and rocket engine testing facility that is contaminated with radiological and chemical pollutants. The 2,850 acre site is near Simi Valley, Chatsworth, Canoga Park, Woodland Hills, West Hills, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills, Oak Park, Calabasas, and Thousand Oaks. For over twenty-five years, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Work Group has served to keep the community informed about the contamination at SSFL and assure it is thoroughly cleaned up.
To learn more visit www.ssflworkgroup.org or contact us at info@ssflworkgroup.org. 

— Los Angeles: DOE breaks agreement to clean up Santa Susana Field Lab contamination; may leave behind 94%

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For action and upcoming meetings, go to http://www.ssflworkgroup.org

From the Ventura County Star

February 11, 2017

Our region has just been hit by two significant events that affect the health of our community.

While we have long awaited some relief for our drought, torrential rainstorms inundated the Santa Susana Field Lab, one of the most polluted places in the state. Runoff from far lesser storms in recent years resulted in more than 200 instances in which highly toxic and radioactive contaminants migrated off site at levels in excess of state pollution limits, and one can only imagine the effect these recent large storms have had.

Around the same time, the Department of Energy broke its solemn cleanup commitments and announced it would leave as much as 94 percent of the soil contaminated at the field lab site not cleaned up. Unless people rise up and our elected officials act strongly to enforce the promises, people in neighboring communities will be at perpetual risk from migrating radioactivity and toxic chemicals.

The field lab housed 10 nuclear reactors, of which at least four suffered accidents, including a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959. There was a factory for fabricating reactor fuel rods out of plutonium, perhaps the most dangerous substance on earth. In a “hot lab” there, highly irradiated nuclear fuel rods shipped in from around the nation were cut apart, with several radioactive fires.

It illegally burned radioactive and chemically hazardous wastes in open air pits, by shooting barrels of the waste with rifles to ignite them, with the toxic plumes blown over surrounding communities. It conducted tens of thousands of rocket tests, many using very dangerous fuels, and then flushed out the engines with a million gallons of toxic solvents that were allowed to simply percolate into the soil and groundwater.

The result of this shameful violation of basic environmental protections is widespread contamination of groundwater, surface water and soil with strontium-90, cesium-137, plutonium-239, perchlorate, PCBs, dioxins, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and much more. And because the site sits in the hills overlooking more than 500,000 people within 10 miles, the contamination wants to flow off site to the places and people below.

The site has been fined more than $1 million in recent years for allowing pollutants to migrate off the property at levels deemed unsafe for people or the environment. And as long as the site doesn’t get cleaned up, that will continue.

These awful materials cause cancers including leukemia, genetic defects, neurological and developmental disorders and other health problems. A federally funded study by Dr. Hal Morgenstern of the University of Michigan found a greater than 60 percent increase in key cancers in people living near the site compared with people living farther away. Another government-funded study by a team from UCLA led by Dr. Yoram Cohen concluded that numerous pollutants from the site had migrated off site at levels in excess of EPA levels of concern.

For these reasons, the community was joyous in 2010 when the Department of Energy and NASA signed legally binding agreements with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control requiring all contamination that could be detected in the soil to be cleaned up by 2017.

It is now 2017 and the cleanup hasn’t even begun. And the DOE just issued a draft environmental impact statement breaking the 2010 cleanup agreement and saying it will only consider three options, none of which comply with its past commitments.

One would leave 34 percent of the contamination in place. A second would leave 86 percent. And the third would walk away from a staggering 94 percent of the contaminated soil, just leaving it in place. The 2010 agreement barred any consideration of leave-in-place alternatives.

The DOE has essentially thumbed its nose at California. Even if the cleanup agreement didn’t exist, the decision on how much toxic pollution to clean up doesn’t rest with the polluter, but with the state regulator. The DOE can’t decide to just walk away from most of the contamination.

But the state has been remarkably silent so far in response to this assault on its authority. Indeed, it has in its own actions undercut the cleanup agreement it signed. Toxic Substances Control is years late on its own environmental impact report and has been busy undermining the cleanup in other ways as well.

In 2010, we were promised that, with a couple of narrow exceptions, all of the soil contamination that could be detected would be cleaned up. Now it appears likely than close to none will be, and the people in the area will continue to be at perpetual risk from migrating radioactive and toxic contamination — unless they speak out now, loud and clear, and their elected representatives do the same.

Robert Dodge, a family physician in Ventura, serves on the boards of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions. Daniel Hirsch is director of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy at UC Santa Cruz and president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap.

 

http://www.vcstar.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/02/11/dodge-hirsch-santa-susana-field-lab-broken-promises/97766134/

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