The 50th anniversary of the worst nuclear reactor disaster in U.S. history happened just outside of Los Angeles July 13-26, 1959 and still resonates today. READ “Wrinkles in Runkle Canyon – 50 Years After a Santa Susana Nuclear Accident Holds Up Land Development” in the LA Weekly where EnviroReporter.com‘s Michael […]

JIM GARNER WORKED IN THE LATE 70S for a company; called Brownyard Steel Fabrication, which was doing contract work for Rocketdyne at the Santa Susana lab, we wrote in “Hot Zone,” a 1998 Los Angeles magazine cover story. He recalls standing in a steel vault 60 feet underground, tearing out […]

Exclusive 2019 Update: VICTORY AT THE VA – West LA Veterans Administration master plan protects old nuclear dump from development While this document reverts back to the original characterization of the dump that made it into the draft PricewaterhouseCoopers report, there are some interesting differences. This web page displays notes […]

Submitted by Michael Collins on Nov. 17, 2005 1. What is your title as the principle for PwC on the CARES project? What does your work entail? 2. The “Stage 1 Summary Report Appendix, Site: West Los Angeles” 129pp PDF document (“report”) dated September 13, 2005 was “produced under the […]

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 […]

A popular Brentwood dog park on Veterans Administration property is build over an old radioactive waste dump that may soon be unearthed by proposed development. by Michael Collins EnviroReporter.com – May 18, 2006 SUVs and luxury sedans glide into the Barrington Dog Park parking lot just south of Sunset Boulevard […]

Veterans Administration begins testing for radioactive waste beneath popular dog park and surrounding areas including Brentwood School By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – December 7, 2006 In direct response to a five-year CityBeat and EnviroReporter.com investigation into a biomedical nuclear waste dump in Brentwood, the Veterans Administration has begun […]

Runkle Canyon is poised to be Simi Valley’s newest neighborhood. But did the city misinterpret the risk of radioactive material in the ground? By Michael Collins Ventura County Reporter – March 17, 2005 Cattle graze on verdant hills as winter winds whip through the branches of centuries-old oaks on Runkle […]

Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory was on the frontlines of the Cold War. Now some who lived near “The Hill” say they share two distinctions: chronic illness and the unswerving belief that the lab caused it By Michael Collins Los Angeles magazine – June 1998 ON A HOT JULY NIGHT […]

Runkle Canyon is poised to be Simi Valley’s newest neighborhood. But did the city misinterpret the risk of radioactive material in the ground? By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – March 10, 2005 Cattle graze on verdant hills as winter winds whip through the branches of centuries-old oaks on Runkle […]

Runkle Canyon is poised to be Simi Valley’s newest neighborhood. But did the city misinterpret the risk of radioactive material in the ground? By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – March 10, 2005 Cattle graze on verdant hills as winter winds whip through the branches of centuries-old oaks on Runkle […]

2019 UPDATE EnviroReporter.com analysis of Runkle Canyon documents and tests – KB Home-supplied 41 reports This timeline analyzes 41 reports that KB Home supplied to DTSC as part of their “Voluntary Cleanup Agreement” of Runkle Canyon in December 2007. DTSC is the lead agency to oversee a new agreement that […]