All Entries Tagged With: "Rocketdyne"
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.
Goo-ology
EnviroReporter.com discovers a pathway for pollutants from rocket test stands into the soil and groundwater of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. In the early 1950s, a rocket crew member figured out how to keep rocket exhaust flames from melting the bottom of not only the test stands, but the rock they were standing on: use cascading showers of water to cool the hot zone. The result may have been to massively spread poisonous rocket fuel on a level not previously known. Finding may help explain one major contributing factor at the astronomically polluted lab.
Cain Was Able
EnviroReporter.com was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our friend Steve Cain, senior environmental planner for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, on December 16. In our last communications, Steve provided us with information crucial to an investigation that could impact the health and well-being of untold numbers of people, speaking volumes about Steve’s integrity. We will miss this delightful and dedicated man.
Age of Consent
California EPA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control issues a new draft consent order regarding the cleanup of the old Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory that now includes site owner Boeing and requires that the company, NASA and the Department of Energy adhere to the strictest cleanup standards passed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007. Environmental activists like Simi Valley’s Radiation Rangers are thrilled by this renewed effort to remediate the pollution left at the site contaminated by chemicals and radiation and home to America’s worst uncontained nuclear reactor meltdown.
Bowled Over
The old Bowl Test Facility has extremely contaminated soil like much of the rest of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. What sets this rocket testing area apart from the rest of Rocketdyne is that it duplicates the Nazi rocket test stand design for the terrifying V-2 rocket that killed thousands of civilians and soldiers in World War II. Today Bowl sits as a silent and deadly reminder of Southern California’s Nazi-influenced past.
Bravo Beauty
This ethereal photograph from December 12, 1960 shows a rocket test at the Bravo test stand on NASA’s part of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The golden tones and aquamarine color make this previously unpublished photograph one of the most awe-inspiring images we’ve ever seen of a rocket test at the lab.
Rocketdyne meeting tonight in Simi Valley
It’s likely that the Radiation Rangers will attend and may have questions of the panel about our revelations that Boeing claimed that no offsite testing had been done in Runkle Canyon and that it didn’t border the 2,850-acre lab, when the very same report showed otherwise.
Meltdown Dustup
The worst meltdown in U.S. history happened 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles from July 13-26, 1959. A reactor spewed hundreds of times more radiation than Three Mile Island did in 1979. The effects of this covered-up meltdown still reverberate throughout Southern California today.
State Keeps Rocketdyne Cleanup Control
In an historic move to maintain California’s control of the costly cleanup of the former Rocketdyne lab in the hills between the Simi and San Fernando valleys, Cal/EPA Secretary Linda Adams said late yesterday that the agency would oppose federal Superfund listing for the radiologically and chemically-polluted 2,850 acre site.
Simi Valley supports Supplemental EIR for Runkle Canyon
The Simi Valley City Council indicated “support” for a new Runkle Canyon Supplemental Environmental Impact Report after the Radiation Rangers’ presentation at milestone meeting. More environmental tests were also ordered by State EPA of developer KB Home. DTSC’s Norm Riley said that he would review 2007 heavy metals tests of Runkle creek by the City and by the Radiation Rangers.
