Council member speaks out on Rocketdyne

Glen Becerra, a Simi Valley City Council member, has been trying to contact Seattle-based aerospace giant Boeing (formerly Rocketdyne) for some time now with little success. He wants to talk to them about how the cleanup is going on their 2,800-acre property in the Simi hills and to make a request. Becerra wants Boeing to consider donating or selling their land to the city of Simi Valley after cleanup is complete.

"If they wanted to develop the site, I would fight that development," Becerra said. "Sell it or

donate it as open space for the good of the community. It's a nice way of them saying thankyou. I fully understand the value of land in California, but I also understand that Simi residents have a high quality of life that needs to be preserved."

Now known as the Santa Susana Field Lab, the property lies on the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The site was used for nuclear energy research from the 1940s through 1988. Regular rocket engine tests were conducted there until late last year.

Rocketdyne was part of North American Aviation for most of its history. NAA merged with Rockwell International, which was then bought by Boeing in December 1996.

In February 2005, Boeing reached an agreement to sell Rocketdyne to Pratt & Whitney.

Boeing agreed to pay $30 million to settle an eight-year-old lawsuit brought by 133 plaintiffs who assert that the pollution created by the decades of nuclear and rocket engine testing in the Santa Susana Hills has led to a number of illnesses.

A key argument in the case against Boeing was an earlier U.S. District Court finding that a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor core at the field lab in 1959 may have released 260 times more radiation than the 1979 meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island.

Becerra is frustrated that only one person from Boeing has contacted him about discussing the future of the land.

"I want to start a dialogue on the long-term use of that property, Becerra said. "I'm still trying to talk to them officially. They told me they don't have specific plans yet for long-term for that site. They are currently just focused on cleanup and a shutdown."

Becerra thinks that ultimately the Boeing property should be used for something like a public park.

"I would like to see that site cleaned up and then preserved as open space for our community," Becerra said.

Simi Valley Councilmember Michelle Foster said she can't ever see the land being developed commercially again. "It's a great idea for it to be used as open space," Foster said. "I think the best use for the land would be something like a park."

"There's probably some tremendous tax benefits they can get for donating that land. I'd like to sit down and talk to them about it."

Rocketdyne/Boeing is very close to being finished with their rocket testing/engine testing and will wrap up the last tests this year.

Becerra has a family connection to Rocketdyne. His dad worked there for 10 years. He's 70 now and, according to Becerra, "healthy as a horse."

"Contaminates affect different people different ways," Becerra said. "To make sure we aren't missing anything, the cleanup has got to be done correctly, for no other reason than to make sure members of our community are safe."

Rocketdynewatch.org is a website run by concerned citizens who want Southern Californians to stay aware of Rocketdyne/ Boeing's activities. Members of the group, who wish to remain anonymous, say they get far too many letters from Simi Valley residents with "undiagnosed illnesses" they fear may have been caused by toxic spills near Simi Valley.

The family of a 39-year-old mother who has an undiagnosed illness that she is not expected to survive are concerned her symptoms may be related to living close to the rocket-testing property. In a statement her family describes the illness as a "mysterious, deadly, neurological disease, more relentless than the Iraq war."

According to the statement, "The many devastating debilitating symptoms are a puzzle that even the best Simi and UCLA doctors find baffling. They at first thought it was multiple sclerosis but now have declared that it is not. Its variety of symptoms includes body tremors, difficulty speaking and swallowing (she now has a gastric tube so that she can stay alive), rigidity of limbs, muscle jerks, weight loss, extreme fatigue, brain atrophy, have reduced her life to a narrowing circle of disability."

The family sent their statement to rocketdynewatch.org, and said they feel frustrated and helpless and wanted to inform other Simi residents living on or near Kuehner Road of their situation.

In the letter the family asks, "Are we too near poisoned wells? Is this the cause of all of these mysterious life-threatening symptoms? It feels only right to tell others that there may be something deadly lurking out there."

Officials from the watchdog website commented on the letter.

"The tragic situation described by Ms. Hanson is unfortunately all too common in our experience over the past several years in our investigation of the Rocketdyne public health issues. The strongest evidence that we have had so far of tangible health impacts from the Boeing SSFL is UCLA's very recent Community Health Study which shows high spikes of chemical and nuclear contamination and increased incidents of a wide variety of cancers as one nears the site," they said.

They went on to say they're working with several doctors and lawyers who are collecting information on troublesome cases and they plan in the near future to post a community health survey form on their website.

"In the meantime, we recommend that anyone suffering from strange health symptoms immediately contact their doctors and insist on hair and possibly blood samples taken to screen for heavy metals and other pollutants specific to the Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory," rocketdynewatch.org officials said.

The Simi Valley Acorn made several attempts to talk to Boeing, but calls were not returned.