Residents' concerns over Runkle response are valid

Having been involved with the cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Lab for the last 20 years, I take affront to the dismissal given by the editor regarding the valid concerns of citizens in the nearby communities.

If you would take the time to look at the history of promises not kept, shoddy cleanup methods employed and flagrantly skewed tests, you, too, would have grave concern about this latest proposal to release Runkle Ranch for homes to be built.

Yes, the developer should pay for the latest tests, but they should have no control over those tests.

It is only common sense that if you are being paid by someone to get the results they want, you will strive to do what it takes to get the required figures.

The developer should pay as a service to the community, but the laboratory doing the testing should have no ties to the developer. We community members have suffered many family cancers and illnesses over the years, which we attribute to pollution from past nuclear and chemical spills. Barbara Johnson Santa Susana Knolls