The Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL), formerly known as Rocketdyne, was a Cold War-era testing facility located in the hills outside of Los Angeles. The SSFL was used for rocket engine tests for “America’s Race to Space,” beginning in 1949, and for experimental, top-secret nuclear work that began in 1953. The site was also used for rocket fuel, liquid metals, and chemical laser research.

The site’s complete “background” cleanup deadline of 2017 has come and passed without remediation and the SSFL remains one of California’s most toxic sites. Dangerous chemicals, toxic metals, and radionuclides continue to migrate into local communities through the wind, rain, and during wildfire events.

A federally-funded epidemiological study by the University of Michigan determined there was a direct correlation between how close residents lived to the SSFL and increased cancer rates. Rare illnesses and diseases have plagued community members for decades and are believed to be caused by the site’s 350 different contaminants of concern.

The SSFL’s Responsible Parties (the Boeing Company, which owns the majority of the site, NASA, and the Department of Energy) have gone to great lengths to break out of their cleanup agreements to leave most of the site polluted with dangerous amounts of contamination while claiming they are doing a “health-protective” cleanup that could result in 96 out of 100 people to get cancer if they lived on portions of the site and ate the produce grown there.

Parents Against SSFL was founded by mothers of children diagnosed with rare cancers and aims to protect nearby communities from exposure to the site’s toxic and carcinogenic contamination by advocating for the complete remediation of the Santa Susana Field Lab.