Runkle Canyon Chromium
Jim Pappas, DTSC Chief of Northern California Permitting and Corrective Action Branch, sitting in on the Workgroup panel for Norm Riley, dismissed Carey’s concern yet what he said suggests what is in Runkle Canyon is in Dayton Canyon too.
“I’m familiar with your request about the salts, and we have sampled the [unintelligible] salts found on the rocks of Dayton – and the concern was…we looked for it for perchlorate and the samples for perchlorate came up “non detect,” Pappas said. “We were in Runkle canyon and observed a similar kind of salt – a crystal on the rocks there too, and um…had it analyzed and although they were different drainages obviously we checked the precipitate salt and found that it wasn’t a problem to public health.”
“I’d be more than happy to share with you the analytical results of our previous investigations,” Pappas continued. “In Runkle there were some metals and some calcium and other salts but it wasn’t uh… we didn’t find it a problem for public health.”
“I nearly fell out of my seat when I heard Carey say that he found the same thing in Dayton Canyon that we did in Runkle Canyon, which is miles away on the other side of Rocketdyne,” Rev. Southwick told EnviroReporter.com after the meeting. “But what really upset me was Pappas just dismissing the finding out of hand and saying the substance was some harmless stuff no one should be concerned about.”
“While it is laudable that DTSC would test the rock with white precipitate out of Runkle Canyon and then give the Radiation Rangers the results, it is unfathomable that these folks didn’t see that the stuff has so much chromium and is obviously not natural — just look at it!” Southwick said. “I am completely discouraged because we have so much faith in Norm Riley. That chromium has to be broken down to see what it is exactly. And with what the Rangers and the city found last year with the arsenic and heavy metals, DTSC has to take this stuff as seriously as we do and get the science right.”
