June 9, 2022, Water Board Hearing Postponed at the request of local government

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Melissa Bumstead  |  Parents Against SSFL  |  melissabumstead@sbcglobal.net 

Dr. Martita Martinez-Bravo |  Friends of Fieldworkers, Inc.  |  dr.martinezbravo@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JUNE 8, 2022

RE: Local governments asked for the Board to postpone a vote on Boeing’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). They expressed serious concerns with the MOU and Settlement Settlement Agreement between Boeing and the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC).

Letters to Renee Purdy, executive officer of the Los Angles Regional Water Quality Control Board, were sent from:

The Water Board has postponed the hearing but will reschedule within two months.

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Parents Against SSFL PROTEST CANCELED

The planned community protest, organized by Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab will NOT take place on June 9.

What: Peaceful Protest
When: June 9, 2022
Time: 8:30 am
Where: Ventura County Government Center, 800 S Victoria Ave, Ventura, CA 93009

Cancer parents and residents of Ventura County and Los Angeles will peacefully protest before the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) hearing on June 9 to express their concerns about Boeing’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) proposal. 

The Water Board’s vote on the MOU on June 9 will determine if Boeing will be required to monitor and regulate the stormwater runoff from the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL), under a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, after the insufficient cleanup of the SSFL is completed. 

Denise Duffield, Associate Director at Physicians for Social Responsibility- Los Angeles, was already outraged over the recent Settlement Agreement between Boeing and the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) that will leave over 90% of the SSFL’s contamination on site, contrary to the DTSC’s claims that the new cleanup agreement would make it safe enough for people to live on the site and eat the produce they grew there. 

“The Settlement Agreement puts our community at continual risk of major health issues from the toxic chemicals that will remain onsite at the SSFL. A previous study found that parts of Boeing’s property at the SSFL are so contaminated that 96 out of 100 people would get cancer if they lived onsite and ate the produce they grew there. That won’t change unless the entire site is cleaned up, which is what Boeing originally agreed to in 2007. And now, if the MOU isn’t stopped, that contamination will continue to migrate into nearby communities, indefinitely.”

With the source of the polluted water remaining onsite after the cleanup, residents are concerned that Boeing’s MOU will allow them to release unmonitored amounts of contamination from the SSFL into the headwaters of the Los Angeles River and into Ventura County’s Calleguas Creek Watershed. The watershed supplies residential drinking water, crop irrigation, recreation, supports wildlife, and flows into the Pacific Ocean. 

The Boeing Company has polluted these water sources with contamination from the SSFL before. After the rains that followed the 2018 Woolsey Fire, lead was found 17x the legal limits in stormwater flowing offsite. Arsenic, cyanide, dioxins, mercury, manganese and gross alpha radiation are among other pollutants found in the runoff from the SSFL above legal limits. Boeing has violated their NPDES permit hundreds of times in the past two decades. 

“Many of these chemicals will remain harmful for decades or even centuries,” says Dr. Martita Martinez-Bravo, Camarillo mother of three and Community Outreach Coordinator volunteer at Friends of Fieldworkers, Inc. “We want the Water Board to regulate Boeing’s polluted water more, not remove NPDES permit. No parent should have to worry if their children are safe when they drink, bathe, or play in the water. Additionally, Friends of Fieldworkers has been witness to elevated cancer rates, high rates of learning disabilities, and birth defects among our farmworker families.  A yes vote on the MOU would further put the health of these farmworker families at risk.”

Speakers at the protest include community activists and cancer moms Marisa Lopez, of Oxnard and Melissa Bumstead, of West Hills who also began the grassroots group Parents Against SSFL. Both mothers believe the contamination at the Santa Susana Field Lab caused their daughters’ cancer. After the protest, people will be encouraged to stay for the Water Board hearing to give comments urging the Water Board members to vote “NO” on Boeing’s MOU proposal.