Hirsch was quick to take issue with Dade Moeller, the controversial laboratory that has repeatedly drawn the ire of environmentalists and local activists alike, as we have reported on for years as a search for Dade Moeller on EnviroReporter.com shows.
Even Walsh has repeatedly objected to KB Home’s use of Dade Moeller, as shown by her comments as reported in Cleanup Rocketdyne Runkle Canyon Comments:
While we appreciate the need to potentially use data already generated to date, we feel it crucial to point out that independent review of that data should include a detailed explanation for the contradiction between the summary of the data, and the data itself (i.e. strontium-90 exceedences)[sic]. This goes further than to merely underestimate the results, they in fact, describe exceedences [sic] to the strontium-90 results as being within range that they define. Six of the seventeen original samples submitted exceeded the MDA in concentrations that ranged from 4.756 pCi/g in SS-6 to 0.686 pCi/g in SS-16.
The Dade-Moeller report summarizes these same results to mean that no exceedances occurred. There have been many concerns about the independence and quality of the analysis of this contractor. This “inaccuracy” constitutes a material misrepresentation of fact, through omission and unsupported conclusions, which make trusting the conclusions of these reports, impossible. These questions remain unaddressed and we feel they are primary to the task of determining the trustworthiness and accuracy of the data collected and analyzed to date so that a truly informed and protective decision can be made on the Runkle Canyon project.
too [sic] bad you wrote your article in reverse, Joan, misrepresenting what was said and the issues. Word-twisting instead of word-smithing [sic]. Removed from position for cause? That is not true according to Maziar Movassaghi, Acting Director who took on all decision-making power including the decisions at Runkle Canyon as of March of this year. Now that Joan’s inaccurate article appears to have been pulled from the online magazine, perhaps it is coming out that you can’t mis-represent the truth to this degree without a little trouble from the editor.
Though inaccurate, Walsh’s message was not a complete surprise as she has been pursuing a campaign to reinstate Riley ever since he was sacked as we reported in “Double Vision” August 25. In that coverage, we posted a July 13, 2009 interview with Riley conducted by Joan Trossman Bien, who was this reporter’s co-writer on a recent Miller-McCune Online Magazine feature about the 50th anniversary of the meltdown of the Sodium Reactor Experiment in 1959 at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) high in the hills between the Simi and San Fernando valleys in Southern California.
After waiting a week to allow Walsh to cool down, I wrote her to explain why we had not posted her comment.
Christina,
Seeing your latest RIS post about bringing back Norm, I wanted to be clear with you why I didn’t ‘okay’ the post below – it was to save you from embarrassment over not getting the facts straight. I wouldn’t disapprove a comment simply because I disagreed with it. I disagree with your comments but you’re certainly entitled to your opinions as [are] Joan and I.
Note that the article was Joan’s and mine, not hers alone; she/we/Miller-McCune did not misrepresent Norm, or anyone for that matter, in the piece and it was never pulled from Miller-McCune as you can see here: http://www.miller-mccune.com/science_environment/50-years-after-nuclear-meltdown-1438 (which has been linked on our website’s index page all the while, if you bothered to look which, apparently, you never did).
Indeed, the article was so popular that when it came out, it temporarily crashed the online magazine’s server, which is one heck of a feat. The editor was, and is, thrilled with the article and is looking forward to more of my work (and Joan’s as well). Please note that even weeks after coming out, it is still getting loads of hits.
I do not want to get into a spat over this because it is pointless – I did you a favor though this impulsive comment pissed me off mightily – I won’t allow our website to be a conduit to slandering me/Bien/anyone with false notions. It does no one any good, especially you in this case.
Your welcome.
Michael
PS: I also want to point out that IF Maziar “took on all decision-making power including the decisions at Runkle Canyon as of March of this year,” that is certainly news to us because Norm never said a word about it to Joan, me, us or the community. IF that was the case, Norm lied to Joan in the interview and I highly doubt he would do that.
Walsh declared her response “off the record,” apparently not realizing that “off the record” is an agreement between two parties. I didn’t agree, and even if I had, she would have nullified the understanding by simultaneously sending my private message to her, to Riley, who then sent it on to others. Not only did Walsh apparently believe that declaring her e-mail “off the record” made it so, she also believed that declaring my e-mail “public record” made it so. Not so. She made it clear, however, that getting facts straight wasn’t necessarily at the top of her priorities.
When I clicked on the [Miller-McCune] article it went to a general page without any article on it. Again, only going by what happened when I clicked. I don’t have the time or the interest to check it daily. However, the reason for my comment is because of the slant that you are presenting these issues with. You don’t know everything and I frankly don’t care what anyone said to Joan as I don’t know who Joan is and the interview was long before these events happened. I have spoken to Maziar and asked him when he took over the decision-making power at the site and he said when he became Acting Director in March. Norm’s job was to take the hits, but he was not getting approval to move forward from above. His job was not to forward that responsibility or blame upwards, because no one above him would speak to anyone in the public. Maziar doesn’t know how NOT to lie, so he should avoid the public whenever possible.
In what could only be described as a shocking admission from an activist who has pushed for full SB 990 adherence to cleaning up Rocketdyne, Walsh says that “of course SB990 has been a hindrance!” and then went on to threaten this reporter that I should worry about Riley’s lawyers:
In addition, this isn’t about a decision about a report, this is about destroying a person, a career. In addition, this is a person who has really stepped up for our community had gotten more done in 2 years than Mr. Hirsch has done in 30 (probably why he’s so pissed) This was a stellar career for 25 years, and now, based on lies, it is over. I would worry about his lawyers because I seriously doubt he will remain silent and just let this happen to him, especially after seeing his direct response to Maziar’s lie to Mary [Wiesbrock] http://cleanuprocketdyne.org/documents/DTSC/The%20Real%202_0.pdf. Now that he is retired, he is not gagged and he’s comin’ out with the truth!
And that truth ought to be mighty interesting, as Riley suggests:
There is a good deal more to know about what has really happened at this site: I assure you the best is yet to come. You, Mr. Collins, will be reading those accounts in the papers and blogs of reporters I trust and respect.
But you, dear readers, have now learned about Riley’s core allegations here. First.
We’re not sure if Riley was aware he was telegraphing his punches by sending us this e-mail, if he was trying to shop his expose through us, or if he simply lost his temper. Whatever happens will hopefully end up being a sideshow to the main attraction, which is cleaning up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory and protecting the health of nearby communities.
“I hope we can get past all this nonsense and make sure that DTSC really looks at our Runkle Canyon Response Plan comments like Mr. Movassaghi has promised,” says Rev. Southwick. “DTSC now has the chance to turn the page on what has been two years of phony oversight in Runkle Canyon that kowtowed to the developer and ignored the community. We wish everyone, officials and activists alike, would put their private interests and egos aside so we can get that place, and Rocketdyne, cleaned up like they should be.”
25 Years of Award-Winning SSFL/Rocketdyne Reporting
1998 – 2023
Yeah right Tammi H. What an upstanding guy. First he sides with Boeing against SB 990 and now he appears to be working for KB Home. Guess he figured out where the money is public health be damned. With “regulators” like that who needs polluters?
I am SICK and saddened that I recently moved to Simi Valley and live here with our 6 month old son. My husband owned the house and I would NEVER have moved here otherswise. I assure you, with or without the sale of our home, we will be LEAVING soon. These issues are serious and I’m disgusted about everything I’ve read about the lies and witholding of truth so that people in these communities could be SAFE. I can’t even read all of the post above – it’s immature and digusting! This is HELL on earth – DO NOT MOVE TO SIMI VALLEY! Do your own research as I have and you will see Santa Susana has contaminated this community in many, many ways.
GOD, BUDDHA, UNIVERSE, please bless the people who have lost their lives becuase of these lies – and please prevent these fools from hurting any other people by allowing more homes to be built anywhere nearby.
I used to work for Norman Riley. He was an upstanding manager who was passionate about his work and the environment. He took his position seriously and didn’t use it as a political bargaining chip. He was knowledgeable, responsible and one of the most dedicated people I have had the pleasure to work for.
He was also extremely loyal. He wasn’t just loyal to the people who worked for him, he was loyal to the people above him because he believed in the basic integrity of those driving DTSC. It’s his faith in people and his dedication to the environment which has earned him loyalty.
I think it was his belief that if he protected the environment as far as the letter of the law would allow him, there would be requisite loyalty and support from his superiors. This would seem a fair and equitable return for someone who has dedicated 25 years to protecting human life. If Mr. Riley made a mistake, it was in that he believed that his superiors would be as loyal to him as he has been to them and to the environment.
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, a saying so very relevant here with certain community members. A paragraph removed is an indication of truth being far too painful to bear, the truth being certain problem activists who strive to alienate instead of uniting VOLUNTEERS. That is all we are: VOLUNTEERS with no secret agenda, no secret meetings with DTSC and other regulators, no secret visits to Boeing/NASA/DOE, no private sidebar discussions, no hoarding of public documents and files and emails, and no ‘group-think’ goal of having newcomers only following your agenda and doing only what is important to YOU else be marked as disloyal then ostracized and dictated to a “my house my rules” credo at public gatherings — such arrogance. If this problem is to not continue another 15 years, certain activists need to go the way of Mr. Riley and leave.
[Subsequent paragraphs redacted for content]
This all has to stop. The rumors, backstabing mass forwarding emails, everyone in a frenzy of distrust. It is time that everyone calms down, figures out who our project leader is and let him prove himself worthy of our respect. No one can win this war with the troops so divided. Everyone is either a part of the solution or a part of the problem. Please, I can’t take another 15 years of this.
Glad he is bye-bye. Too much cover-up. If you think comments were left out here at Runkle, think about similar offsite locales like Dayton Canyon (Riley’s led DTSC team fails to reply to comments by the public just like here at Runkle times many instances). Indeed, the Chatsworth Reservoir is also ignored by Mr. Riley, and that place is highly contaminated; Woosley Creek, Bell Creek, Las Virgenes Creek, Chesebro Creek, Palo Comado Creek, Black Canyon, and et al — all tainted by Rocketdyne industrial wastes and Mr. Riley arrogantly blows them off as if Mother Nature does not exist. Not to mention the Calabasas Landfill with its beta radiation higher on the Rockedyne side and the secret backroad from the SSFL used to dump radioactive wastes under the cloak of darkness — HELLO ! DTSC, where are you ?!
[Paragraph redacted for content]
Mr. Hirsch is no angel either, let’s be honest. In collusion with DTSC and especially past inept-minded regulators, it is Hirsch who intentionally covers up atrocities of the Ventura County permitting process that encouraged the contamination from onset way back in the 1940s and 1950s (and on through present day: hint, Google up “Ventura County Burn Days at SSFL Burn Pits” and read the SAIC 1991 document). Without such permits and other permitting filings, there would not have been any polluter, any radiation, any TCDD Dioxin, any chemical contamination. Hirsch also sides with the City of Los Angeles in their cover-up of the poisoned Department of Water and Power Chatsworth Reservoir as well as the County of LA for its role in permitting contamination to be trucked and spilled within its boundaries. Decision makers make decisions. And some cities and both counties are culpable participants in this mess, whether or not Dan Hirsch likes it or not.
The friend of your enemy is your enemy. For Pete’s sake, the polluter here would use its own employees to test poisons on, and then publish the results in medical journals stating said poison is safe (unbeknownst to the reader is the extremely minute amount of toxin administered to the human-guinea-pig-Boeing-employee over several days).
If the parties involved at present and above would have chosen to live a clean life, there would be no unearthly delay in the cleanup. I challenge you, special reader, to see through the fog and do what is right. If something does not seem right, it usually isn’t. Attend meetings when you can. Stand up, speak robustly, and question ignorance. The upcoming new California Administration is going to need your record to learn from in quick time, so please comment when commenting is solicited. And, by all means, THINK INDEPENDENTLY, else be one of the sheep being led to slaughter. Please read below;
Quoted from “A Treatise on Military Weapons Containing the Radioactive Material: Depleted Uranium”, by Lynnie Howe:
“Atomic secrecy has corrupted American democracy. And the rationale for this corroding secrecy has always been national security, the need to keep powerful information from falling into the hands of the current US enemy. Nuclear scientists even today regard the Q security clearance as a badge of honor, even while it signifies a determination not to spill the truth.
But now secrecy has mutated into an instrument of self-preservation not for the security of the nation but for the profits of the nuclear industry. The [keeping] of secrets has evolved into the telling of lies. And the deception is being perpetrated not on the enemies of the US but on its tax-paying citizens, whose contributions finance US atomic atrocities and line the coffers of nuclear profiteers.
The reason for this secrecy and deception has also changed. The nuclear industry’s greatest fear is no longer of an “enemy’; It fears instead that the truth about the environmental and health effects of radiation, if fully conveyed to the American people, will result in the collapse of the nuclear industry with its obscene profits.”
Again, please put thinking cap on and be independent.
No John, it would make a GRAND OPERA, with Norm singing the role of the canary in the coal mine. Apparently an explosion is imminent!
This would be such grand theatre if it weren’t for the fact it’s so damn tragic.