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Study of contamination at rocket lab site reveals evidence of cancer
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By Avi Rutschman avi@theacorn.com


The Santa Susana Field Laboratory Panel, an independent team of
researchers
and health experts, released a report last week concluding that toxins
and
radiation released from the Rocketdyne research facility near Simi
Valley could be
responsible for hundreds of cancers in the surrounding areas.

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory was built in 1948 by North American
Aviation and consists of 2,850 acres in eastern Ventura County. Over
the years, it
has been used as a test site for experiments involving nuclear
reactors,
high-powered lasers and rockets.

The report was completed by experts in the fields of reactor accident
analysis, atmospheric transport of contaminants, hydrology and geology.
The study
took five years to complete and was funded by the California
Environmental
Protection Agency.

"We want to thank the many legislatures that have attended meetings,
provided
funds and pressured public agencies into action," said Marie Mason, a
community activist and longtime resident of the Santa Susana Knolls
area in Simi
Valley, who helped to form the advisory panel.

The panel originally formed 15 years ago after a 1959 nuclear meltdown
that
occurred at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory was made public.
Concerned about
the possibility of facing adverse health affects due to the meltdown,
area
residents pressured legislators into funding a panel to study the
impact of the
incident.

"We were fearful of what our families and communities may have been
exposed
to," said Holly Huff, another community member who pushed for the
formation of
the panel.

The first study conducted by the panel was performed by UCLA
researchers and
focused on the adverse health effects the meltdown had on Rocketdyne
employees. Completed in 1997, that report indicated workers did indeed
suffer a higher
rate of lymph system and lung cancers.

Boeing, the current owner of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, has
challenged the validity of the studies, calling into question the
scientific methods
used by researchers.

"We received a summary of the report Thursday, and we were not given an
advance copy to look through and prepare with," said Blythe Jameson, a
Boeing
spokesperson.

"Based on our preliminary assessment," Jameson said, "we found that the
report has significant flaws and that the claims are baseless without
scientific
merit and a grave disservice to our employees and the community."

After the UCLA study concluding that laboratory workers had faced
adverse
health effects because of the meltdown, the panel was given federal and
state
funds to conduct another study of potential impacts on neighboring
communities
and their residents.

According to the panel, Boeing was unwilling to disclose a large amount
of
data concerning the accident and certain operations. This forced the
researchers
to base some of their studies on models of similar accidents.

"One simply does not know with confidence what accidents and releases
have
not been disclosed, nor what information about the ones we do know of
also has
not been revealed," the panel stated in its report.

After five years of research, the panel concluded that between 260 and
1,800
cancer cases were caused by the field laboratory's contamination of
surrounding communitiesThe incident released levels of cesium-137 and
iodine-131, radio

nucleotides that act as carcinogensthat surpass the amount of
contaminants
released during the Three Mile Island incident. The report also stated
that
othecontaminants have escaped, and still could, from the Boeing-owned
laboratory
through groundwateand surface runoff.

Jameson said other scientific studies have contradicted those findings.

"There have been several reports done by federal and state agencies,
most
notably a preliminary site evaluation from Agency for Toxic Substance
and Disease
Registry in 1999, in which they did not identify a public health hazard
to
surrounding communities," Jameson said.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned
Scientists, estimated in the field laboratory panel's report that as
much as 13,000
curies of iodine131 and 2,600 curies of cesium-137 escaped from the
reactor
during the 1959 meltdown. In comparison, only 17 curies of iodine131
and none of
cesium137 escaped during the Three Mile Island incident.

The test reactor was contained in a partial pool of liquid sodium and
buffered from the surrounding environment by a layer of helium.

The reactor did not have a concrete containment shield, which would
explain
the high levels of radioactive material that were able to escape during
the
meltdown, according to Lochbaum.

Dr. Jan Bayea, a physicist who specializes in modeling the movement of
radiation through the air, came to the conclusion that between zero and
1,800
cancers, but most likely 260 cancers, were caused by the release of
radioactive
materials.

"We faced three major difficulties in this study because it was a
complex
site, not much information was released and we couldn't obtain any
meteorological
data from Boeing," Bayea said.

According to the panel, Boeing wouldn't release meteorological data
from the
time period of the 1959 incident, claiming that information is a trade
secret.

Jameson insists that Boeing has not tried to hide anything.

"We've shared the meteorological data with the Agency for Toxic
Substance and
Disease Registry, that was then, in turn, turned over to various
groups,"
Jameson said. "It's been shared with various other agencies, most
recently at a
Department of Energy meeting in May of 2005 where it was shared with
the
public."

Dr. William Bianchi, a soil physicist, discovered that Boeing's
decision to
not use a synthetic cap on the burn pit areas has led to additional
contamination of groundwater at the site, according to the panel's
report.

Boeing attempted to stop the recharge of groundwater with clay soil and
with
native vegetation, but neither method proved to make the area around
the burn
pits impermeable.

"The supposed impermeable clay material is not impermeable at all," the
report states.

Dr. Ali Tabidian, chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at Cal
State
Northridge, discovered that perchlorate, a toxic substance found in
rocket
fuel, did end up in groundwater wells in Simi Valley as a result of
surface
water runoff.

According to the report, Tabidian said that perchlorate migrated off
the
laboratory site through surface water runoff, traveled into the Arroyo
Simi, then
entered the groundwater and wells near the Arroyo.

The study says perchlorate has been discovered in a number of wells
surrounding the area.

Boeing has challenged this claim, stating that the perchlorate could
have
come from Chilean fertilizer, fireworks or road flares.

According to the report, Tabidian feels these are unjustifiable claims
because if they were true, perchlorate would be detectable in wells
throughout Simi
Valley rather than only in the areas surrounding the Arroyo.

"Perchlorate is very soluble and travels almost as fast as water. It's
a
warning, the leading edge of contaminate plume," said Dan Hirsch,
co-chair of the
panel and a lecturer on nuclear policy at UC Santa Cruz.

Despite their findings, the panel did not recommend an epidemiological
study
of surrounding communities because of a lack of data provided by Boeing
and
the high migration of residents in the area throughout the years.

"Doing a health study at this point would be a big gamble; it would be
wiser
to search for a fingerprint of the contamination release," Bayea said.

"This has been 17 years of unwanted frustration, and in those years our
innocence has been lost," Mason said.

The report commissioned by the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Panel can
be
read online at www.ssflpanel.org.

"There is no evidence of contamination as a result of our current or
past
operations that has adversely impacted the surrounding communities. We
will
continue to move forward with the cleanup of the site in a safe and
effective
manner," Jameson said.