Search Results for 'rocketdyne'
BLAST FROM THE PAST
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 match to see how [it] would burn,” according [...]
ROCKET SLIME
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 giant fighting for ludicrously lenient standards every [...]
TOXIC SPRING
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.
The state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) [...]
ROCKETDYING
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 site.
And Channel 2 News produced a [...]
ROCKETDYNE RUNAROUND
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 hills between the Simi and San Fernando [...]
THINGS ARE PERC-ING UP
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 officials at Thousand Oaks’ Civic Arts Plaza [...]
FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN
Simi Valley’s Rocketdyne facility was blasted by 50 years of rocket engines and nuclear reactor meltdowns, leaving a toxic disaster atop what residents call “The Hill.” Runoff may be poisoning Southland residents. And now the government just broke a promise to clean it up.
By Michael Collins and Sharon McKenna
Los Angeles ValleyBeat – June 12, 2003
Simi [...]
THE SINS OF ROCKETDYNE
By Michael Collins and Sharon McKenna
Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – July 3, 2003
Last week’s news that the toxic chemical perchlorate was found gurgling from a groundwater well, nearly a mile outside the northern border of the Rocketdyne facility, shocked many Simi and San Fernando valley residents. But former Rocketdyne worker Lynwood Sibley was hardly surprised. Sibley [...]
PERCHLORATE PATROL
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 (Cal-EPA) ordered the company to put together a [...]
TWO MILE ISLAND – CAUTION RADIATION
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 a 3-2 vote. Cheers erupted from a crowd [...]
BETWEEN ROCKETDYNE AND A HARD PLACE
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 facility. On August 3, the Ventura County Board [...]
IN HOT WATER
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. Radiological and chemical pollution at the vast Santa [...]
RADIATING OUTWARD
More good news about contamination from your friends at Rocketdyne
By Michael Collins
Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – September 27, 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. Radiological and chemical pollution at the vast Santa [...]
PIPE DREAMS
Plans to store contaminated water under Ahmanson Ranch raise environmental concerns
By Michael Collins
Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – February 24, 2005
The deluge of rain soaking Southern California hasn’t washed away the problems of a scant water supply throughout the region. Now a plan to bank reclaimed water in eastern Ventura County has raised concerns that it could [...]
SOUR SATISFACTION
Boeing settles massive lawsuit over the Valley’s heavily polluted Rocketdyne site
By Michael Collins
Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – October 6, 2005
For years, the residents of Simi Valley and western San Fernando Valley towns adjacent to Boeing’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) have claimed that the troubled site, polluted with myriad high-level toxins – including the remains of [...]
THE FALLOUT
Two new reports find elevated cancers and other risks within a few miles of Rocketdyne
By Michael Collins
Los Angeles ValleyBeat – February 16, 2006
On February 2, two long-anticipated UCLA studies analyzing cancer rates and toxic contamination around Boeing’s massive Santa Susana Field Laboratory were finally released. Years in the making, the reports don’t bode well for [...]
CLEANING UP ROCKETDYNE
Citizen-inspired remediation starts at lab-adjacent Sage Ranch
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – November 21, 2007
The Boeing workers in the otherworldly suits looked out of place trudging through the dry creek bed that separates Sage Ranch Park and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Nov. 20. Outfitted in head-to-toe translucent plastic uniforms with air filter masks, goggles [...]
THE PROMISED LAND
Gov. Schwarzenegger terminates the uncertainty of Rocketdyne cleanup with historic move that keeps California in charge – for now
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – January 24, 2008
It was a move as deft as any he has ever made in his action films, this time potentially saving countless real lives. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger empowered the state’s [...]
LIVING NEXT TO A WAR FACTORY
Neighbors of closed Aerojet plant worry about their health and water
By Michael Collins
LA Weekly – May 11, 2000
Fred Sharp thought it was funny the time his son brought home 20 rounds of machine-gun ammo he had found in his Chino Hills neighborhood. But Sharp, a Vietnam vet and bomb expert, was less amused on March [...]
RUSSIANS, ROCKETS AND THE SANTA ANA RIVER
A closed weapons plant in the Chino Hills may be leaking hazardous chemicals into the Santa Ana River.
By Michael Collins
Orange County Weekly – May 18, 2000
Fred Sharp thought it was funny the time his son brought home 20 rounds of machine-gun ammo he had found in his Chino Hills neighborhood. But Sharp, a Vietnam vet [...]
RANCH REVELRY
By Michael Collins
(Ventura County Reporter – May 20, 2004)
Nearly 200 folks gathered May 16 in Hidden Valley to celebrate the defeat of Washington Mutual’s plan to turn the pristine hills of Ahmanson Ranch into 3,050 residences and two golf courses. The Save Open-Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) fundraiser honored citizen activist Mary Weisbrock in her role as [...]
THE FEELING IS MUTUAL
By Michael Collins
Los Angeles ValleyBeat – July 10, 2003
ONE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S most bitterly contested development projects took a radical and unexpected turn this week, stunning environmentalists and open-space advocates and possibly indicating a change of heart by developers. On June 7, Washington Mutual, Inc. announced the departure of Guy Gniadek, who was head of the Ahmanson Ranch [...]
WHO TO WATCH – JANICE LEE
Calabasas City Council member, pollution-hater, hell-on-heels
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – February 6, 2003
Because she has been a staunch Ahmanson Ranch opponent and strikes fear into the hearts of Washington Mutual lackeys. Because she has sounded the alarm over the Calabasas Landfill that shows evidence of being polluted by Rocketdyne’s goo. Because she is succeeding in making [...]
SUITED UP
Anti-Ahmanson Forces Contest Ventura County
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – January 23, 2003
The five Los County Board of Supervisors sat impassively, January 14th, as an attorney representing the Ahmanson Ranch project pleaded for them not to sue the County of Ventura for signing off on the massive Ahmanson Ranch project. That scheme is designed to build 3,050 [...]
ROCKETDYNE RANCH
The battle over the massive Ahmanson Ranch housing development heats up amid growing concerns about possible water and soil contamination from nearby Rocketdyne.
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – December 12, 2002
July 1959. Eastern Ventura County. Simi Valley folks squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs as they watched their flickering black and white television sets. They stared in nervous [...]
