FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

September 26, 2023

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Melissa Bumstead
Co-director, Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab | santasusanacampaign@gmail.com | (818) 233-0642

Denise Duffield, Associate Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, (310) 339-9676 dduffield@psr-la.org

meeting information

What: Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board Hearing: Boeing’s Proposed NPDES permit for the Santa Susana Field Lab

When: Thursday, September 28, 2023

Time: 1:00 PM

Where: Board of Supervisors Hearing Room Ventura County Government Center 800 S. Victoria Avenue #1920 Ventura, CA 93009

Virtual (watch only): https://cal-span.org/static/index.php

PRESS RELEASE:

Groups advocate to prevent Boeing’s toxic chemicals from reaching local drinking water, crop irrigation water, and Pacific Ocean

Residents and environmental NGOs to attend Water Board meeting to protect the Los Angeles River watershed and Ventura County’s Calleguas Creek Watershed from toxic chemicals and radioactive waste at the Santa Susana Field Lab.

Mothers and advocates with the grassroots group Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab (Parents), Melissa Bumstead and Jeni Knack, will ask the Regional Water Board on Thursday to protect their families from Boeing’s contaminated rain runoff from the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL). Bumstead’s teenage daughter is a two-time cancer survivor and believes the site has caused her daughter’s cancer. Knack, a Simi Valley resident, is aware that the EPA has stated that her drinking water may be impacted by the site’s contamination. Both mothers are leading the local charge to demand more restrictions on the Water Board’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to hold Boeing accountable for allowing its contamination to leave the Santa Susana Field Lab and pollute local water. 

The SSFL, located in the hills above Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley, is one of California’s most toxic sites. The Cold War-era site was used for decades to test rocket engines and for nuclear experimentation. Today, the site remains heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and radioactive waste. 

The Santa Susana Field Lab drains directly into Bell Creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River and into the Arroyo Simi, a tributary of the Calleguas Creek Watershed. The watersheds are used for drinking water, crop irrigation, fishing, and recreation, and are capable of carrying SSFL pollution into the Pacific Ocean. 

The Boeing Company owns most of the Santa Susana Field Lab and holds the NPDES permit for the site. Boeing has paid over $1,000,000 for NPDES violations over the years. Instead of seeking to reduce the source of the contamination at the SSFL, Boeing has pressured the Water Board to ease the constraints of the permit to incur fewer fines. Although there are over 350 known chemicals of concern at the SSFL, the permit proposes to only regulate 42 of them. 

Parents, residents, and NGOs are concerned that without a stronger permit, the community will be left without any safeguard against Boeing’s toxic water runoff.

Boeing has signed agreements with the Water Board and the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to leave 90% of their toxic chemicals on site permanently, as well as a Water Covenant to leave groundwater contaminated without any guarantee of future remediation. These agreements, along with the DTSC’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) break the prior 2007 and 2010 cleanup agreements that would have removed all contamination to “background” levels and will instead leave nearly all of the dangerous contamination onsite where it will continue to contaminate local water.

Jeff Ruch, director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), and Dr. Robert Dodge, president of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles, will present to the Water Board in the hopes of expanding the permit to include stricter limits on PCB congeners, “forever” PFAS chemicals, VOCs, and other dangerous chemicals.

Annelisa Moe, Heal the Bay Water Quality Scientist, will attend the hearing to support a strong permit to protect the community from Boeing’s contaminated rainwater.

Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab is a grassroots organization who believes by advocating for the complete remediation of the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL) they can help protect nearby communities from exposure to the site’s toxic and carcinogenic contamination. Parents Against SSFL was founded by mothers of children diagnosed with rare cancers and seeks to reduce, to the greatest extent possible, the number of local families who have to hear the words, “your child has cancer.”

For more than 40 years, Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles has been bringing the voices of health professionals to the front lines of the fight for a safer future, and working hand in hand with communities impacted by environmental racism, pollution, and injustice.