NOT THE NORM
As for the state’s financial situation, it has already affected it. People that work for me and myself are furloughed three days a month. We confront the possibility of a fourth day. So that’s three days a month that we are not working on this project. And it may be potentially four days a month that we are not working on this project. That means no one is reviewing the data. No one is out inspecting activities that are going on at the site. Absolutely, the current financial situation has an impact on the whole project.
The stimulus funding has materialized for the DOE [Department of Energy]. DOE has put down about $40 million of stimulus money to complete the characterization of the former nuclear area, Area IV. There’s going to be a radiological survey performed by EPA paid for by DOE using stimulus dollars. But there are no other stimulus dollars forthcoming. There’s no stimulus money coming to DTSC, for example, which would somehow enable us to overcome more easily the challenges we face. There is no stimulus money coming to NASA that I know anything about. There certainly none going to Boeing.
I don’t agree with the concerns that this move by NASA to declare its property as excess somehow signals their intent to walk away from their clean up obligation. NASA fully intends to clean up the site. It is [going] through this excess property procedure because it is required to do so by regulation. It no longer needs that land for mission purposes. We decided, we being the people in the United States of America, we decided to end the shuttle program. That ended NASA’s need for that particular property. So it is required by federal law to notify members of Congress and others that it no longer needs the land for mission purposes and therefore the land is called excess and the federal government then steps through procedures to dispose of the property. But none of that says NASA is going to walk away from the clean up. So I believe that concerns in that direction are exaggerated.
Has SB-990 been helpful in moving the clean up forward?
No.
Has it been a hindrance?
Yes. That is because the entities responsible for meeting those standards have resisted of those standards which they consider to be unreasonable. I think that the standards are unnecessarily restrictive. We’re talking about…It says clean up the site to an agricultural standard. Agricultural! When that is done, and we certainly will enforce the law because that is our job, I’m not suggesting that we’re not going to uphold SB-990 and I will be very disturbed if your article says otherwise, we will enforce SB-990. But here’s a fact: when this clean up is done, this is going to be the cleanest land in Southern California. You can go to any other farmland, farmland, in this state today, and it will not meet SB-990 standards. That’s because of all the chemicals that are on it, exactly. And its farmland and you and me and our kids and everybody else are perfectly happy to eat the fruits and vegetables that come off that land. This dirt that will be excavated from Santa Susana in order to meet the agricultural standard, will be in some cases, good enough, clean enough to be used a clean fill material at other sites. It’s not that contaminated.
And, finally, and this is very important for you to understand, clean ups are normally geared to reasonably foreseeable land use. You clean up depending on what you intend to do with the land. If you know the land is going to be used for industrial purposes, then you clean up to a standard consistent with that foreseen land use. Here, the reasonably foreseeable land use is open space parkland. Not residential. This is going to be park land. No one is ever going to build a house up here. It’s going to be open space. So we are talking about a requirement for a clean up that is orders of magnitude more stringent than is necessary for the open spaces scenario. And therefore, very expensive to complete. And that is why the parties responsible for the clean up have resisted 990 and that is why I say that 990 has not helped speed up the clean up. Have I tied this together for you adequately? Do you understand what I’m telling you? There was an agreement [to not develop the land as residential], but it failed. But we continue to have assurances from the Boeing Company and from NASA that that is what they would like to see happen to this property. They are not interested in seeing this property developed for residential use. They don’t want to see it developed for industrial use. They want this to be open space. And Boeing, which owns the vast majority of the land, can certainly make that happen. Boeing intends to give the property to the State after it is clean up. It will be state land and it will be a park, open space, wildlife preserve, and it will be very clean.
