[CPEO-BIF] Rocketdyne and Runkle Canyon, California

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Rocketdyne Cleanup Won't Help Runkle Canyon
Historic fix doesn't extend to tainted adjacent land where KB Home plans 
461 condos

By Michael Collins
LA Weekly (CA)
September 23, 2010

Elation over a historic deal to clean the sprawling Santa Susana Field 
Laboratory earlier this month garnered significant media coverage for 
good reason: The California Environmental Protection Agency division 
overseeing cleanup of the long-closed Rocketdyne rocket-testing and 
nuclear-research site convinced two federal agencies to agree on a plan 
for ridding the polluted acreage of toxins. Cal-EPA's Department of 
Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) persuaded the Department of Energy and 
NASA to clean up their polluted portions of the 2,850-acre site, leaving 
behind only normal, or background, levels of radiation, heavy metals, 
dioxins and other chemicals.

Built among rocky bowls and stunning canyons between Simi Valley and the 
San Fernando Valley, the testing site suffered a partial nuclear 
meltdown in July 1959 that was the worst in U.S. history, releasing far 
more radiation than the better-known Three Mile Island disaster in 1979.

But lost in the glow of good news, L.A. Weekly has learned, is the fact 
that the cleanup will stop at the property line.

In a July 22 letter, California's toxic-substances control department 
had already quietly approved KB Home's cleanup plans for an adjacent 
property in pretty, but toxin-tainted, Runkle Canyon. KB Home plans to 
erect 461 condos and homes.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.laweekly.com/content/printVersion/1065050/

See also http://www.enviroreporter.com/2010/09/sleight-of-land/
--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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