Activists mark 65 years since partial meltdown at Santa Susana Field Lab

Ex-Ventura County supervisor says the vast cost is why the entities responsible aren't cleaning it up.

Linda Parks grew up in Reseda hearing the roaring sound of rocket engines being tested at the nearby Santa Susana Field Laboratory famous for its U.S. space program that propelled men to the moon.

Her family moved to the West San Fernando Valley after one of the field lab’s nuclear reactors experienced a partial meltdown in 1959, sending clouds of radioactive gases into the atmosphere.

She is still haunted by roaring sounds coming from the 2,850-acre field.

“It was loud,” she said. “Even as a child, you knew it was something strange in the environment.”

Parks, a former Ventura County Supervisor, started paying attention to the Santa Susana site again as an adult in the 1980s after she heard about the disastrous environmental legacy associated with the field.

“When I became an elected official, I had to do what I could to get it cleaned up,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘What a surprise that it was allowed to carry on this long.’”

Parks and a group of elected officials, residents and activists plan to gather on Saturday, July 13, to mark the 65th anniversary of the partial meltdown at the Santa Susana site. Community members say the cleanup is long overdue.

Established in the 1940s in a then-remote area adjacent to the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley, the rugged land was used for rocket engine and nuclear reactor testing. But it was gradually surrounded by suburban growth in Chatsworth, West Hills and Simi Valley. About 150,000 people live within five miles of the field.

Boeing, NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, Rocketdyne and its predecessors tested rocket engines and nuclear reactors, leaving the soil and groundwater laced with industrial and radioactive contamination. Besides rocket testing, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory had 10 nuclear reactors. In 1959, one of the reactors underwent an infamous partial nuclear meltdown, releasing radioactive fumes into the air.

In 2007, the Department of Energy, NASA and Boeing signed a consent order highlighting standards for the cleanup. In 2010, the Department of Energy and NASA also signed an administrative order on consent with the state, promising to clean up their portions of the radioactive tainted site.

Boeing spokeswoman Tiffany Pitts wrote in an email that the company “agreed to the comprehensive framework developed by the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA) to implement a stringent cleanup of the site.”

She added that two government agencies — the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board — provided “Boeing with a clear process, schedule, and criteria for future decision-making while protecting important biological and cultural resources.”

The cleanup is expected to start in 2025 following the public comment period for the environmental impact report released last year, according to the DTSC website.

Karen Edson, the Department of Energy spokeswoman, wrote in an email that the department and “its partners are following proper environmental processes and are currently working with DTSC to finalize our soil and groundwater cleanup plans. Each plan will have its own timeline for specific activities and will include opportunities for public engagement.”

Edson said that “public safety, the protection of human health, and the environment remain our top priority while executing cleanup at Santa Susana. The department is a partner in getting it done right, using the best science available, and protecting cultural and environmental resources.”

Today, 14 years after the Department of Energy, Boeing and NASA promised to clean up their sections of the site, the cleanup of soil and groundwater hasn’t begun.

Bonnie Klea worked as a secretary for Rocketdyne in the 1960s and 1970s when her doctor said her cancer was most likely due to an occupational hazard.

She eventually learned that many of her colleagues who worked at the Santa Susana field were diagnosed with cancer and she spent decades advocating on their behalf. In 2009, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, determined that the health of workers may have been endangered after their exposure to radiation in Area IV.

Since then, nearly 1,500 claims have been made by former Rocketdyne workers and their families, who have received more than $58 million in compensation.

“My whole body is full of scars,” Klea said. “It’s a miracle I’m still alive. I prayed that I would be alive long enough to get all the compensation for the workers. And I did.”

In 2023, the State Department of Toxic Substances, which oversees remediation efforts, issued an Environmental Impact Report with the details of the cleanup plan, revealing that it would take up to 15 years to remediate the site.

But activists said this new plan would leave the majority of contamination in place.

Elected officials in Los Angeles County, City of Los Angeles and Ventura County have all passed resolutions in the last few years stating that they will sue the parties responsible for the cleanup if the Environmental Impact Report doesn’t guarantee a thorough cleanup.

On Saturday, July 13, activists will gather at Strathearn Historical Park in Simi Valley to urge elected officials from Los Angeles and Ventura County to act on their promises to hold the entities responsible and accountable for the cleanup.

Lawrence Yee, former chair of the L.A. Regional Water Quality Board, said, “This campaign is all about pressuring the local officials to do what they promised to do.”

Yee said the site’s groundwater was laden with highly carcinogen chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and trichloroethylene, or TCE, that can linger for decades.

“It’s been a long time with nothing being done,” Yee said.

The reason the cleanup has been delayed for so long, Parks said, is because of its astronomical cost.

Boeing’s cleanup costs were expected to reach hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency. NASA estimated the cleanup of its portion of the field would cost at least $200 million.

According to NASA, removing the field to a less stringent recreational use would cost from $25 million to $76 million.

“It’s expensive to do it right,” Parks said. “They would rather keep the money and endanger people’s health.”