EPA wants field lab added to federal Superfund list
The designation would put greater enforcement power behind cleanup
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

In a letter sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, officials from the United States Environmental Protection Agency recommended the Santa Susana Field Laboratory be placed on the Superfund National Priorities List, a designation that would get the federal government involved in the cleanup of the 2,850-acre site in the hills two miles south of Simi Valley.

The news is significant because it marks the first time a federal agency has gone on record stating that the former rocket engine and nuclear reactor testing facility requires the highest standard of decontamination and because the EPA- more than any other agency- has the power to enforce the cleanup order.

"This is a major milestone in the cleanup process," said Simi Valley City Manager Mike Sedell, who's followed the field lab's saga since the 1980s. "And (the city) won't just be standing by, we'll actively be having discussions with government officials to ensure that a decision is made, and we want to see it made expeditiously."

In last Friday's letter to the governor, Wayne Nastri, an EPA regional administrator, states that research on large rocket engines by Rocketdyne and NASA "resulted in extensive chemical contamination of onsite soil and groundwater" at the field lab.

According to the EPA, in 1980 on-site drinking water wells were found to be contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and were shut down after workers were exposed to TCE at concentrations above federal and state limits.

While the extent of chemical contamination at the field lab has not been fully determined, the EPA estimates more than 500,000 gallons of the toxic solvent permeates the ground beneath the site. TCE can cause serious health problems if breathed or ingested, even in small amounts.

In addition, Nastri's letter reports that "contamination from the site has the potential to impact municipal drinking water supplies in the future."

In an interview this week with The Acorn, officials at the EPA's Superfund division said Simi Valley's drinking water could potentially be affected by the leaching of on-site contaminants, but no such determination has yet been made.

"We can't answer that question fully . . . but there is groundwater contamination on-site in a shallow aquifer and the aquifers do interconnect within a certain distance," said Dawn Richmond, Superfund site assessment specialist. "Because of that there is potential to impact drinking water wells in the area, but to the best of my knowledge that has not happened yet."

Richmond said the threat would continue to exist until the site is cleaned up.

Asked why the EPA, which first labeled the field lab a potential hazardous waste site in 1980, has now determined that the site deserved a spot on the Superfund list, Richmond said the possible new designation was a matter of incorporating years of separate site studies into a single document. The EPA completed the sevenmonth "complete assessment" this year in response to ongoing public and political pressure.

At the conclusion of the assessment, EPA officials determined the site scored close to 28.5 (on a scale of 100) on the Hazardous Rankings System Model- the threshold to qualify for Superfund status. EPA officials won't disclose the site's exact score until they get the go-ahead from the governor.

"We started compiling all existing data and looking at the entire site as a whole, for radiological and chemical contamination . . . and when you look at everything, the score is now around 28.5," Richmond said. "We routinely look at sites that didn't qualify before that haven't had a lot of work continuing on them and see if they qualify now. The score is now at about 28.5 when in the past it was not."

Oversight of the field lab's chemical cleanup now belongs to the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which under the stipulations of the recently passed Senate Bill 990 was going to ensure Boeing cleaned the site to acceptable residential standards before releasing rights to the state for parkland.

Mike Montgomery, regional chief of the Superfund program, said that agreement is not likely to be affected significantly if the field lab were added to the Superfund list. All that would change, he said, would be the addition of federal money and regulatory powers to the cleanup process.

"Cleaning up the site under Superfund isn't inconsistent with the site being transferred to the state," said Montgomery, noting that either the state or the federal government could be in the lead cleanup role.

"We'd coordinate with the state to determine what the appropriate cleanup level is and what the appropriate cleanup actions are," he added.

"If the state wants to use the site for recreational purposes, our objective would be to clean up the site so it can be used for those purposes," Montgomery said.

Sedell said the council's concern isn't what agency leads the cleanup- but that it is cleaned up to safe levels, sooner rather than later.

"We want it done in the best way and the quickest way possible and that has been what the council has been pursuing all along," he said. "It's just that now, where in the past no one would respond to us, everyone wants to be hands-on. That's good for residents."

City Council members Glen Becerra and Steve Sojka, along with Sedell, flew to Washington, D.C., in March to petition EPA officials to get involved in the field lab. The local contingent left without a solid answer.

Although neither Richmond nor Montgomery could say what effect the meeting had, they said ongoing pressure by local residents and politicians played a role in getting the EPA to take a complete view of the field lab and its level of contamination.

"In the past various areas had been drawn to our attention for whatever reason, it was before my time . . . but based on the last report we completed out there, there were many concerns from the community that we look at the entire site, not just at these various pieces, but as a whole," Richmond said.

Montgomery agreed.

"As some of these pieces come together and the picture becomes more whole it's a little more obvious to both us and the external players- the community and the political leadership- that in fact this is something that we should be taking another look at," he said.

The EPA- whose regional office is based in San Francisco- gave the governor 30 days to respond to the recommendation, but that deadline is not "set in stone," according to Montgomery.

"The process is that when we do an assessment we look at all the information and if we believe that site is going to score high enough, then we request the permission of the governor- we actually propose the site, which is done in a federal registry notice," Montgomery said.

If Schwarzenegger agrees with the recommendation, the EPA's regional office would forward its request to its Washington, D.C., headquarters for final approval.

Boeing spokesperson Blythe Jameson said a Superfund designation would not alter the company's earlier promise to clean up the site to accepted residential standards before transferring control over to the state.

"The EPA's decision will not affect Boeing's commitment to a thorough and timely cleanup of the site," Jameson said. "SB 990 and the letter of intent we signed with the state already requested the site be cleaned using the California Superfund process."