California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control could start taking public comments as early as this fall on groundwater cleanup for the Department of Energy’s area of the sprawling Santa Susana Field Laboratory, according to a report released Thursday.
The California Agency on Thursday issued its long-awaited Final Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the 2,850-acre contaminated property about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
The site is owned by Boeing and has been used over time for rocket engine and nuclear research by Boeing, NASA and DOE. Those are the three parties responsible for remediating the site under a 2007 administrative order on consent.
DOE’s portion, the Energy Technology Engineering Center within Area IV, takes up less than 20% of the total. DOE has already demolished the last of its structures at the technology center, according to an 8-minute video presentation on the report. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and environmental groups urged DOE to go ahead and take down its remaining buildings to minimize the risk of radiological contamination being spread by wildfire.
Slabs from the buildings’ foundations remain, the California agency said in the video.
The 2,500-page report has been percolating since a draft was issued in 2017 and the final document took time as the state had to review and respond to thousands of comments, Department of Toxic Substances Control director Meredith Williams said in the video.
The final report evaluates the possible environmental impacts from the cleanup, such as traffic and noise, and identifies ways to avoid or reduce them, Williams said. The good news is the state found no environmental harm serious enough to merit recirculating a draft report, she said.
A link to the press release can be found here. The final report is available here.
Soil cleanup is anticipated to take approximately 15 years once work begins, according to the report.
“The groundwater cleanup and long-term monitoring will continue as long as necessary to ensure the site does not present a danger to human health or the environment,” according to the document.
