WORKERS
Thousands of men and women worked at the Santa Susana Field Lab (formerly known as Rocketdyne) between 1949 - 2006. Employees of Rocketdyne, NASA, the Department of Energy, and former agencies such as North American Aviation and Atomics International Agency, created and supported research in nuclear energy, rocket engine tests, heavy metal testing and chemical laser work.
SSFL Worker Studies
UCLA, 1997: Rocketdyne Radiation Study studied to determine the health effects on 4,563 Rocketdyne workers. “We found the effect of radiation exposure was six to eight times greater in our study than extrapolated from the results of the A-bomb survivors study.”
UCLA, 1999: Rocketdyne Chemical Study found that Rocketdyne workers who had high hydrazine exposures were about twice as likely as other Rocketdyne employees who worked at the site to die from lung and other cancers.
Cancer Compensation
To date, over 1,500 former SSFL workers have been compensated for their cancers through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) and many continue to apply with assistance from CORE Advocacy.
To learn more about nuclear workers and the federal cancer compensation act, visit: coreadvocacy.org
Worker Testimonies
The Department of Energy interviewed former workers from Santa Susana Field Lab’s Area IV where the majority of nuclear work took place.
“We would have to ventilate the
room anytime we had to do work in the reactor room because of the radioactive argon gas. The fission gases were held in the underground tank and decayed for a while and then slowly bled out
the stack [to the outdoors].”