Activists and residents living near the Santa Susana Field Lab have for decades grappled with the environmental consequences that haunt the hilly terrain in the Santa Susana Mountains, once the testing site for rockets and nuclear reactors. Now they worry about what they see as a different kind of catastrophe.
Four groups, Consumer Watchdog, Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA, Southern California Federation of Scientists, and Committee to Bridge the Gap, have urged the California Supreme Court to reverse a First District Court of Appeal ruling that allows Boeing to tear down five structures at the Santa Susana Field Lab and deposit the tainted debris in landfills and metal recycling centers the groups say are not equipped to store radioactive waste.
Liza Tucker from Consumer Watchdog warned on Tuesday, July 18, “The case has implications for other sites (where the waste would be taken) in the state. We don’t want a situation where other communities are exposed to radiologically contaminated debris that is dangerous.”
An amicus letter filed separately on July 11 by Friends of the Earth, California Communities Against Toxics and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service warned that, if the appellate decision is not reversed, significant harm could occur “both by allowing radioactive material from the Santa Susana Field Lab to be improperly disposed of, and by giving state regulators an effective green light to allow that practice statewide, affecting numerous other radioactive sites, solid and hazardous waste facilities and recyclers, and residents and consumers throughout the state.”
Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics, said in a phone interview that “the state legislature has spoken, that this type of radioactive waste is not to be landfilled. … It’s not permissible to put it in any landfills, and that’s why we ask the Supreme Court to review.”
In their challenge to the First District Court…
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