Search Results for 'rocketdyne'

ROCKETDYNE STILL HOT

Questionable new EPA soil survey detects radiation thousands of times over cleanup triggers
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – March 22, 2012
More than half a century since several partial meltdowns at the former Rocketdyne complex in eastern Ventura County, astronomical amounts of radiation are still being unearthed at the site, according to a new U.S. Environmental [...]

The Buckyball Stops Here

EnviroReporter.com finds that isotopic identifiers not only cost tens of thousands of dollars, they are thousands of times less sensitive than the Inspector Alert nuclear radiation monitors that we’ve been using since 2000. Now we don’t have to raise money to buy one and will offer to return a dozen donations made to us for that purpose.

Rocketdyne Still Hot

The U.S. EPA has spent millions on assessing the radiation and chemical contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the old Rocketdyne site in the hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley, California. In this Ventura County Reporter news feature, we find out that not only is Rocketdyne far more polluted than previously thought, even in places twice cleaned by lab owner Boeing and nuclear area responsible party, the Department of Energy, we learn that U.S. EPA has deliberately skewed the cleanup numbers. The result could be radionuclides like cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240 being left in place at high levels in violation of agreements between the State and DOE.

The Endless Bummer

Sunny Southern California has been the bulls eye for Fukushima meltdowns fallout and radiation contamination with more Cesium-137 impacting L.A. more than anywhere else in the U.S. after the disaster began March 11, 2011. Now with levels of radiation hammering the West Coast with levels that dwarf Chernobyl’s 1986 meltdown, the danger of Uranium-filled “buckyballs” threatens to irradiate the West Coast turning the seashore a silent unseen cesspool of radioactive goo. This abridged and updated version of Beta Watch, with new data, information and interviews was so shocking that even EnviroReporter‘s favorite print editors were dumbstruck by The Endless Bummer. An EnviroReporter.com exclusive.

Rad News Digest

Rad News Digest which goes back to Day 1 of the Fukushima triple meltdowns and keeps us current going into Year 3 of this unprecedented disaster.

Radiation Readings Soar at Rocketdyne*

Shocking new radiation readings from the old Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory show cesium-137 at nearly 9,300 times normal background levels along with a witches’ brew of deadly radionuclides on “The Hill.” Worse yet, the U.S. EPA has bait and switched the radiation background numbers threatening an agreement to clean the radioactive site back to its normal condition. Sly maneuver fools legislator and nuclear watchdogs.

What’s in Pepper Spray?

An LA Weekly investigation finds the cancer-causing chemicals trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE) being used as the base of pepper sprays sold in California with no Prop. 65 warnings. Sprays with these carcinogens are being sold all over the country. True Value and Do It Best hardware stores sell PCE-based pepper sprays at the Southern California stores LA Weekly investigated.

Beta Watch

An 11-month EnviroReporter.com investigation with over 1,500 Fukushima fallout tests, a new UC Davis report about uranium-filled “buckeyballs” and proof that sea mist carries radiation inland for hundreds of miles all add up to one thing: it’s going to be a long hot Endless Bummer at the beach this year. Bay Watch has just turned into Beta Watch.

Radio

FUKUSHIMA MELTDOWNS & FALLOUT IN AMERICA
Michael Collins Radiation Update June 10, 2013: Amazing one-hour special discussing historic environmental victory in closing San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station but where 1,500 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel rods remain; people and organizations that made SONGS closure happen; potential sabotage issue & inconsistencies in security plan [...]

Radioactive Los Angeles Air 11-16-11

Disturbing readings from one of Radiation Station Central’s HEPA filters after just 30 days of use: 308% of normal background higher. Alpha and beta radiation captured by the filter can be attributed to the triple Fukushima Japan meltdowns, melt-throughs and melt-outs and the decision to begin burning 550,000 tons of radioactive debris in Tokyo from October to March, sending a double dose of radioactive fallout on the Jet Stream over the Pacific to land on America, Canada and beyond. Finding this high a level of radiation is considered dangerous by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Ingested alpha particles can be up to 1,000 times more dangerous than their beta and gamma counterparts.

Fukushima

Radiation Station Posts (dozens of posts)
Dozens of original EnviroReporter.com news posts including sampling, testing and analysis from a news source that has covered radiation issues since 1998. Multiple databases from March 15, 2011 to present with thousands of tests of food, drink, air, rain, mist, airline cabins and more which inform dozens of articles and [...]

EnviroReporter.com’s Radiation Station

Watch a streaming webcam shot of EnviroReporter.com‘s Radiation Station picking up radiation in the Los Angeles Basin. If fallout from the Japanese Fukushima partial nuclear meltdowns and fires makes its way on the jet stream across the Pacific Ocean into Southern California, you will find out about it on the ground in the Los Angeles Basin at this monitoring site.

RUNKLE CANYON ON THE ROPES

Rocketdyne cleanup agreements leave out adjacent canyon slated for development
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – December 9, 2010
The Dec. 6 news of the agreements between California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and both the federal Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA set off a wave of euphoria rarely experienced in the long saga of [...]

Backgrounded

EnviroReporter.com has confirmed through two independent sources that signing of final agreements between the California EPA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA for the cleanup of the former Santa Susana Field Laboratory site in Simi Valley will happen later today.

Rocketdyne – It’s the Pits

Lots of questions, few answers at the latest meeting on Rocketdyne cleanup
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – December 19, 2002
Radioactive and chemical pollution was on everyone’s mind when more than 60 folks attended the quarterly meeting of the Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) Workgroup meeting Dec. 11 at the Grande Vista Hotel [...]

The Road to Runkle

California EPA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control, in a sleight of land, has negotiated a deal with KB Home that would leave the 1,595-acre property virtually unremediated for radioactive and chemical contamination while the adjacent 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory would be extensively cleaned up to background levels. Some Simi Valley residents, led by the Radiation Rangers, are wondering why what’s good enough for Rocketdyne isn’t good enough for Runkle.

ROCKETDYNE CLEANUP WON’T HELP RUNKLE CANYON

Historic Fix Doesn’t Extend to Tainted Adjacent Land Where KB Home Plans to Build 461 Condos and Homes
By Michael Collins
LA Weekly – September 23, 2010
Elation over a historic deal to clean the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory earlier this month garnered significant media coverage for good reason: The California Environmental Protection Agency division overseeing cleanup [...]

Rocketdyne Romper Room

EnviroReporter.com weeds out disgruntled Rocketdyne commenters freshly aroused by new LA Weekly article “Rocketdyne Cleanup Won’t Help Runkle Canyon.” What once were anonymous comment posters now find themselves on the receiving end of being outed. New technology finds function illumninating the phonies that are lighting up the Weekly‘s comment page.

Sleight of Land

Lost in the glow of an historic deal to clean up the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory is the fact that the cleanup will stop at the edge of the property line and not include controversial Runkle Canyon which shows signs of being polluted by the same radiation and chemicals that the old Rocketdyne lab it abuts has been contaminated with.

EnviroReporter.com’s analysis of the final DTSC Runkle Canyon Response Plan

Ever since breaking the story of pollution problems in Runkle Canyon coming from neighboring Rocketdyne in spring 2005, this reporter has produced a substantial body of scientific analysis exploring the radioactive and heavy metal contaminants that impact the property.
The same cannot be said for the Department of Toxic Substances Control which, since April 2008, has [...]

Rick Brausch Interview – Runkle Canyon Response Plan

This September 15, 2010 e-mail Q & A was between reporter Michael Collins and, presumably, DTSC’s Runkle Canyon project manager Rick Brausch. The interview attempted to clarify a few points for the LA Weekly article “Rocketdyne Cleanup Won’t Help Runkle Canyon” published September 23.
[Question] 1. As we discussed, the decision to use the 1.7 picocuries [...]

Rocketdyne – It’s the Pits

Lots of questions, few answers at the latest meeting on Rocketdyne cleanup
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – December 19, 2002
Radioactive and chemical pollution was on everyone’s mind when more than 60 folks attended the quarterly meeting of the Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) Workgroup meeting Dec. 11 at the Grande Vista Hotel [...]

Rocketdyne’s Red Glare

By Michael Collins
LA Weekly – December 9, 1998

Pulling up to Simi Valley City Hall the morning of October 21, EPA staffer Vicky Semones was counting on a quiet, efficient work meeting. Her job was to coordinate the scientists, public officials and community representatives monitoring the cleanup from decades of nuclear and chemical experimentation at the [...]

ATOMIC AVENGER

Former Rocketdyne employee and cancer survivor battles for radiation worker compensation

By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – July 8, 2010
The eyes of Bonnie Klea are extraordinarily bright and unblinking. There is no trace of self-pity for her courageous fight against bladder cancer, now in remission, or her years-long battle with Boeing, Rocketdyne and various federal agencies [...]

The Right Thing to Do

A celebration of forty years of nuclear watchdog activism by Dan Hirsch’s Committee to Bridge the Gap brings out a Who’s Who of environmentalists recently. CBG’s numerous ‘David versus Goliath’ victories are recounted as Hirsch issues a new call to veteran activists to act now to save the planet.