FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, February 17, 2023
CONTACT: Melissa Bumstead | melissabumstead@gmail.com | 818.233-0642
Government Whitewash, Not Cleanup, at Toxic Santa Susana Field Lab
Bogus DTSC Survey Wastes Taxpayer Funds And Makes Mockery Of “Community Engagement”
Simi Valley — The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)’s survey efforts, in the name of “community engagement,” will have zero impact on the cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL). The site is one of America’s worst nuclear meltdowns and one of California’s most chemically contamianted sites, yet no meaningful cleanup has begun despite the 2017 deadline.
The DTSC survey asks for information that is almost completely meaningless in helping clean the site. The short survey asks respondents to indicate their interest levels on certain topics, such as wildlife, traffic, and off-site contamination, as if a toxic cleanup was a multiple choice quiz with only one positive outcome.
The survey was issued nearly a year after a backroom deal with The Boeing Company, who owns most of the SSFL, and only a few weeks before the final cleanup Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIR) will be issued. The most affected community group, Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab, was not involved in the survey and charges that it is a cynical public relations move.
In late January, DTSC mailed, emailed, and telephoned thousands of residents living near the Santa Susana Field Lab. The DTSC survey is heavily skewed, favoring the terms already negotiated behind closed doors instead of asking for genuine community input.
The DTSC survey was sent almost a year after the May 2022 “Settlement Agreement” between DTSC and Boeing which will allow Boeing to leave 95% of the contamination on site permanently. This backroom deal was reached without opportunity for public or elected offical input and without environmental review.
The lack of any public input into Boeing’s Settlement Agreement is the principal complaint of a pending lawsuit charging DTSC with bypassing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – one of the main statutes that DTSC is supposed to enforce.
Additional agreements, based off the Settlement Agreement, will allow Boeing to leave the Santa Susana groundwater poisoned in perpetuity;
The PEIR is to be published for certification in March 2023, according to the DTSC, five years after the public comment period expired on the Draft EIR for the promised cleanup – promises that are being wholesale abandoned.
“Stakeholders want a seat at the table in order to engage in meaningful decisions for the cleanup that impacts our community. And what we received was a survey that will have little to no effect whatsoever on the actual outcome of the cleanup that we have waited decades for,” said Jeni Knack of Parents Against SSFL.
“I got the survey over the phone about the clean-up,” said resident Kseniya Glukhovsky. “It was disgusting. They asked me, ‘how important is the latest cleanup agreement to you?’ I tried to clarify which clean-up agreement they meant, but it was like "please agree or disagree." Well, I agree that clean-up needs to take place, but not according to the Settlement Agreement. But they only wanted a yes or no answer. Every single question was like that. I have cancer and my kid has thyroid issues. I want the original clean up that was promised to us!” she said.
DTSC spokesperson claimed the survey shows that “DTSC is dedicated to creating an open and ongoing dialogue with stakeholders that allows for the exchange of ideas, comments and questions.”
Parents Against SSFL collected several hundred signatures opposing the use of public funds to generate potential opposition to the cleanup that should have been completed five years ago.
“We believe that the people responsible for this type of misuse of public funds should be fired,” added Denise Duffield, Associate Director of Physicians for Social Responsilbility Los Angeles. “DTSC has also used taxpayer dollars to promote its Boeing deal via social media even before it was finally ratified. Boeing is a big rich corporation that does not need a state agency to assist with its public relations.”
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