By Michael Collins LA Weekly – December 9, 1998 “Start talking to the former employees — those who are left alive — that have not contracted cancer,” former Rocketdyne technician Dan Parks implored at the June 24 meeting of the Santa Susana Field Interagency Work Group. A lifelong resident of […]

By Michael Collins LA Weekly – December 23, 1998 Imagine giving someone millions of dollars for doing a bad job. That’s what Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson did on December 15 when he awarded aerospace giant Boeing $148.5 million to complete cleanup efforts at its Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory […]

By Michael Collins LA Weekly – January 20, 1999 Accused industrial polluter Rocketdyne has ducked several legal bullets, but its problems aren’t over yet. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last month green-lighted a federal class-action lawsuit against the corporation’s parent company, Boeing. The suit charges […]

Cancer rates elevated among space-lab workers By Michael Collins LA Weekly – April 21, 1999 The other gooey shoe dropped last week in Simi Valley. UCLA’s School of Public Health released its long-term study of Rocketdyne employees exposed to a soup of toxic chemicals while working on the company’s giant […]

William Webber’s memory of fire By Michael Collins LA Weekly – April 21, 1999 In conducting two detailed long-term health surveys of Rocketdyne employees, UCLA scientists have necessarily focused on the results of working for a firm that helped pioneer the space race. William Webber offers a glimpse of how […]

Watchdog agency under fire for colluding with space firm By Michael Collins LA Weekly – May 5, 1999 The controversy over potential toxic contamination of workers and the community surrounding Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley is now threatening to engulf a state agency charged with monitoring inquiries […]

Criminal charges filed in fatal explosion By Michael Collins (LA Weekly – May 5, 1999) On July 26, 1994, two scientists at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Otto Heiney and Larry Pugh, “placed [rocket propellant] in a container over a bed of sawdust and then ignited [it] with an electric […]

By Michael Collins LA Weekly – July 8, 1999 It’s been more than a decade since Rocketdyne shut down its nuclear-test site to focus on cleaning up the toxic goo contaminating its sprawling compound between Chatsworth and Simi Valley. The cleanup has been a long, slow process, with the aerospace […]

By Michael Collins LA Weekly – August 5, 1999 Community groups have long protested defense contractor Rocketdyne’s failure to clean up toxic wastes at its Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills between the Simi and San Fernando valleys. But this week, it was a cleanup plan that raised hackles. […]

By Michael Collins LA Weekly – October 14, 1999 Military-industrial giant Rocketdyne has been reeling the last few weeks from a barrage of negative publicity about pollution problems at its Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer has demanded a more stringent cleanup at the San Fernando/ Simi valleys–straddling […]

By Michael Collins LA Weekly – January 11, 2000 This week, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an unprecedented invitation to community activists to tour three former Rocketdyne nuclear buildings to observe an environmental survey for radioactive contamination. The media was invited as well to the site in the […]

By Michael Collins Ventura County Reporter – February 12, 2003 Even veterans of the decades-old battle over Rocketdyne’s heavily polluted Santa Susana Field Laboratory were a bit awed Monday night. Gone was the contentiousness that marked Rocketdyne community meetings over the last 10 years. The standing-room-only crowd and parade of […]

Cal-EPA comes down on Simi Valley’s Rocketdyne facility By Michael Collins Los Angeles ValleyBeat – October 23, 2003 The toxic leaks continue at the Rocketdyne lab in Simi Valley. After high levels of the toxic rocket fuel oxidizer perchlorate were found this summer near the facility, California’s Environmental Protection Agency […]

Supervisors vote to require groundwater testing By Michael Collins Ventura County Reporter – August 5, 2004 On August 3, Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks’ precedent setting initiative to require testing for pollutants near the heavily contaminated Rocketdyne facility in Simi Valley won approval from the county’s Board of Supervisors on […]

Ventura County imposes testing for development within two miles of Rocketdyne By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – August 12, 2004 The battle over managing toxics at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory took a historic turn last week with a victory for environmentalists seeking to protect future neighbors of the […]

More good news about contamination from your friends at Rocketdyne By Michael Collins Ventura County Reporter – September 23, 2004 With new revelations coming almost monthly, the scope of the toxic mess at the Rocketdyne aerospace complex in the hills between the San Fernando and Simi valleys continues to grow. […]