Meeting will address cleanup efforts at Santa Susanafield lab

Oak Park residents have been affected



The Department of Toxic Substances Control is planning a public meeting regarding the effort to clean up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

The meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Wed., Jan. 30 at DTSC’s regional office at 9211 Oakdale Ave. in Chatsworth.

DTSC is the state agency overseeing the ongoing cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Lab.

Located in the hills two miles south of Simi Valley and just north of Oak Park, the 2,850- acre field lab is a former rocket engine and nuclear test site strewn with chemical and radiological contamination. Three parties are responsible for cleaning it up: the Boeing Company, NASA and the Department of Energy.

In December, the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency held a meeting to discuss the final results of its radiological survey of one area considered to be the most tainted.

Local cleanup advocates were pleased with the extensive sampling undertaken by the EPA and the wealth of data produced, which showed there are still high levels of radioactivity on site, but were concerned about the next steps in the process and whether all the radiological pollution will be removed.

Community members want all contamination exceeding background levels—the amount naturally occurring in the soil—to be cleaned up.

Residents thought the EPA, acting as an independent third party, would set cleanup levels based on the background values it had determined. But that task has been handed off to the DTSC, which will review the EPA’s findings and decide what samples are contaminated and what actually needs to be cleaned up.

Due to the community’s concerns, the purpose of the DTSC’s Jan. 30 meeting, as stated on the event invite, is to clarify the cleanup levels—and the role the residents should be playing.



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