The state of California is taking comments on two key documents for cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, even as the Department of Energy has acknowledged it cannot meet the 2017 deadline for soil and groundwater remediation of a portion of the site.
Interested parties have until Oct. 23 to submit comments by email, mail, or fax on the state’s draft program environmental impact report and draft program management plan for remediation at the chemically and radioactively contaminated 2,668-acre site in Ventura County.
The Energy Department, NASA, and Boeing are responsible for cleanup of different segments of the facility once used for research and development of rocket engines, nuclear energy systems, and other technologies. For DOE that is Area IV and Northern Buffer Zone.
A 2007 consent order obligates the three parties to carry out their groundwater and soil remediation projects by June 30, 2017. Under a separate 2010 consent order with California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), DOE must wrap up soil work at the former Energy Technology Engineering Center this year.
In a June 29 letter to DTSC Director Barbara Lee, acting DOE Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regulatory and Policy Affairs Mark Gilbertston said “DOE is unable to meet the 2017 cleanup expectations as described” in the 2010 consent order. He noted both the state’s developing environmental report and an environmental impact statement (EIS) being prepared by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The Energy Department as of June was reviewing public input on its document, which would be used in formulating the final EIS and record of decision for DOE cleanup at Santa Susana.
Gilbertson said DOE wanted a meeting with the state agency “to begin discussions on schedules, as well as other appropriate matters that would facilitate completion of the soils and groundwater cleanup activities.”
It was not immediately known whether that meeting has occurred, or whether DOE has offered a new cleanup schedule. Officials with the department’s Environmental Management office and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control did not respond by deadline to requests for comment.
