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Cleaning Up A Half Century Old Mess

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 5, 2014
Filed under

Santa Susana Residents Clamor to Have NASA Clean Toxic Site, NBC 4
“After NASA this week announced it would delay its decision to clean up a long-contaminated Santa Susana lab site, neighbors began calling foul, claiming the tainted area is making them sick. Years of rocket engine testing has made roughly 450 acres of land — located between Simi Valley and Canoga Park — toxic. NASA also tested nuclear reactors in the area more than 50 years ago, and nearby residents say radiation has seeped from the site for years without them knowing.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

13 responses to “Cleaning Up A Half Century Old Mess”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    “Holly Huff, who lives in Santa Susana and has been fighting for a cleanup for more than two decades, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009. She believes her disease could be linked to the mess. “They say they don’t know what causes it, but if you look up Strontium-90 it causes bone cancer,” she said.”

    This is the typical problem we have with superficial news that doesn’t inform. Strontium-90 can be detected in extremely low concentrations, but there’s no information that indicates it was ever detected there, let alone that it caused Ms. Huffs cancer. The only chemicals that were described as actually detected were PCBs and dioxin, which are very common pollutants that can be released by industrial incinerators or even back yard burning and are not specifically associated with either rocket testing or nuclear reactors. No evidence was presented that the PCBs or dioxin were present at hazardous levels.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      You missed the point. The point is to get enough publicity that Erin Brokovitch will come in and “help” her get the money that she deserves.

      • Anonymous says:
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        Perhaps a better point or question is what is the nature of the contamination at the site and why hasn’t it been cleaned up? Snark is fun and reads cool, but it doesn’t answer any questions. Without data on what contaminants are at the site and what levels the contaminants are found at, it’s not possible to make informed comments on Holly Huff’s claims.

        If sites are indeed contaminated, they should be cleaned up, Holly Huff’s claims not withstanding. Given the government’s history of in action or at least slow response when it comes to such cleanups, the residents have justifiable reasons for worrying about the cleanup.

        • Anonymous says:
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          Think about incentives. The Superfund law says that federal agencies pay for cleanup of their own bases out of their own budgets. I had not noticed this, but the environmental budget item seems to have started being drawn out in the FY 10 NASA budget, at around $50M. It’s been climbing to the 70’s. Some doc’s have it in out years at $90M.

          Putting aside the numbers, consider the implications. Bills like this start coming “due” from the accumulation of past activity, long ago. The money has to come out of agency budgets today. These are “new starts” in a way, given their climb rate.

          So again, anyone want to guess at an agencies incentives here as far as urgency when budgets go up 1% or 1.5% a year?

          • david says:
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            Planning for the cleanup of this site and others started long ago with NASA and contractors including the funding as part of shuttle transition. The story of Santa Susana, the futuristic projects, even now almost 60 years later like the SNAP reactor, sodium engines, etc they tackled is fascinating to me. Its a story of taking tremendous risk for the promise of tremendous rewards. I was born too late to work on any of those projects but have been fortunate enough to work with some of the engineers that were involved. I am confident it will be cleaned up, just a squabble over which standards should be used. The cleanup of the ever spreading groundwater contamination is probably one of the most challenging I would think. This is the site of the worst US nuclear accident in history if you didn’t know.
            http://www.enviroreporter.c

        • dogstar29 says:
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          I agree, but as I said the only detected pollutants were PCBs and dioxin, which are in almost every industrial site of this vintage in the country. I agree NASA should clean it up, but unless something is leaching into the water supply, the time is not critical. In fact NASA has developed a real advance in cleanup of groundwater contaminated with trichloroethylene and similar halogenated hydrocarbons, using nanoparticles of elemental iron protected by a hyrophobic coating, which can be injected in a fluid into the soil and will catalyze breakdown of the hydrocarbons.
          http://www.geosyntec.com/UI
          Similarly, at White Sands a years-long project is in place to remove UDMH pollution from groundwater. I just haven’t seen this level of cleanup activity at DOD and industrial sites.

          • Anonymous says:
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            That’s a quasi-summary for a different site altogether. I haven’t found the detailed environmental report for Santa Susana. One site does not necessarily have the same contaminants and/or contaminant levels as the other. Moreover, while dioxins and PCB’s exist at many industrial sites, the levels at which they exist are not necessarily the same or safe.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            I agree. Here’s the EPA report on Santa Susana, which is apparently a Superfund site. Looks like most of it is actually owned by Boeing, and DOE may be responsible for the radiation aspects. TCE is a large part of the problem, so maybe the NASA research on cleaning it up will be useful.

            http://yosemite.epa.gov/r9/

          • Anonymous says:
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            Thanks. Unfortunately the reports on radionuclides aren’t available because of file size.

      • Paul451 says:
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        Don’t be such a maggot, the woman has cancer.

    • david says:
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      not sure what you are using as a source but its not accurate. Check out the EPA reports for region 9 dated november 2012 for the radioactive contaminant summary. Ms. Huff’s Strontium-90 was clearly detected at high levels in a number of samples.

  2. Chris Winter says:
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    Well before the infamous failure of the Fermi nuclear plant near Detroit, a sodium-cooled reactor at Santa Susana melted down. See here:

    http://www.chris-winter.com

    The reference links are still good.