URGENT ACTION ALERT ON SANTA SUSANA FIELD LAB

August 29, 2007

Dear Friends,

We need your help to get the Santa Susana Field Lab cleaned up properly and enduringly. This site is heavily contaminated with radionuclides and toxic chemicals from several nuclear meltdowns and years of rocket testing. CA State Senator Sheila Kuehl has submitted a SB990 that will mandate this action. It passed the CA Senate in May. It will be voted on in the Appropriations Committee tomorrow, Thursday, August 30. Below you will find a list of members of the committee. Please take the time to call as many members as you can and let them know that you support SB990. Future generations are counting on you.

 

Mark Leno – Chair Dem-13 (916) 319-2013

 Assemblymember.leno@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Mimi Walters – Vice Chair Rep-73 916) 319-2073

 Assemblymember.walters@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Anna M. Caballero Dem-28 (916) 319-2028

 Assemblymember.Caballero@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Mike Davis Dem-48 (916) 319-2048

 Assemblymember.Davis@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Mark DeSaulnier Dem-11 (916) 319-2011

 Assemblymember.DeSaulnier@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Bill Emmerson Rep-63 (916) 319-2063

 Assemblymember.emmerson@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Jared Huffman Dem-6 (916) 319-2006

 Assemblymember.Huffman@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Betty Karnette Dem-54 (916) 319-2054

 Assemblymember.Karnette@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Paul Krekorian Dem-43 (916) 319-2043

 Assemblymember.Krekorian@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Doug La Malfa Rep-2 (916) 319-2002

 Assemblymember.lamalfa@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Ted W. Lieu Dem-53 (916) 319-2053

 Assemblymember.Lieu@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Fiona Ma Dem-12 (916) 319-2012 Assemblymember.Ma@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Alan Nakanishi Rep-10 (916) 319-2010

 Assemblymember.nakanishi@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Pedro Nava Dem-35 (916) 319-2035

 Assemblymember.nava@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Sharon Runner Rep-36 (916) 319-2036

 Assemblywoman.Runner@assembly.ca.gov

 

 Jose Solorio Dem-69 (916) 319-2069

 Assemblymember.solorio@assembly.ca.gov

 

 

The original press release issued at the time the bill was introduced is printed below, along with websites for more information. Sheila Kuehl’s website has an entire section devoted to this catastrophe.

 

Local Ventura County citizens who are part of Clean Up Rocketdyne

will be going door to door in the capitol, so anything that makes

 the staffers more familiar with the site will be helpful to the

 process! Tell them you’ll be watching how they vote and that

 cleanuprocketdyne.org will be posting the vote as well. We also need

 the Governor to be educated on the site because he is the one to

 either sign or veto. Thank you so much for taking the time to help clean up our local corner of our nuclear world.

 

For a Nuclear Free World,

Pamela Meidell and Monika Szymurska

Atomic Mirror

 

Community groups involved with this issue:

www.committeetobridgethegap.org

www.rocketdynewatch.org

www.cleanuprocketdyne.org    

  

Senator Sheila Kuehl

Senate Passes SB 990: Santa Susana Field Laboratory Must Be Cleaned Up Before Sale

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

 

Senate Passes SB 990

Santa Susana Field Laboratory Must Be Cleaned Up Before Sale

 

For Immediate Release: May 22, 2007

Contact: Laura Plotkin at (310) 441-9084 or

              Jennifer Richard at (916)651-4023

 

Yesterday, May 21, 2007, the California Senate passed Senate Bill 990, a bill authored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), by a vote of 21 to 16. The measure would require the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) site to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) clean up standards prior to any sale, lease or transfer of all or any part of the property.  The bill also consolidates the oversight of the chemical and radioactive contamination remediation of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site under the lead agency authority of California’s Department of Toxic Substance Control, which is already overseeing the clean-up of chemical contamination at the site.

 

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory was once a prolific rocket and experimental nuclear reactor test facility and was the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959.  The site has long been the source of community concern because of the health effects on the surrounding community of the many years of unsafe and illegal disposal of toxic materials from the facility.  In the 1990’s the facility operators pled guilty to three felony crimes of illegal disposal of hazardous materials.

 

“It is important to protect current and future residents from the toxic effects of releasing this land for housing development unless it is cleaned up to the appropriate environmental standard,” said Senator Kuehl.

 

Earlier this month the U.S. District Court held that the Bush administration had conducted a flawed study of radioactive contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Facility and had, therefore, adopted a cleanup standard that would expose future residents to elevated risks of cancer. Among other things, the Court said that the Department of Energy had overlooked groundwater contamination, disregarded the combined effects of chemical and radioactive contamination, and set a radiation standard that would give every exposed person a 3-in-10,000 chance of getting cancer, far above EPA safety levels established under CERCLA.

 

SB 990 (Kuehl) now moves to the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxics Materials Committee, where it must be heard before July 13th.