The Energy Department on Tuesday issued its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for tearing down buildings and cleaning up soil and groundwater on its portion of the 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County, Calif.
The EIS for Area IV and the Northern Buffer Zone is one of the last steps prior to remediating DOE’s former Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) at Santa Susana, the agency said in a statement. The Energy Department did research on liquid metal technology and nuclear power for decades at SSFL, and is now responsible for cleanup at the site alongside Boeing and NASA.
The Energy Department would prefer to return the roughly 470-acre area to “open space” status where it could be used for recreation at radiation levels protective of human health and the environment. Such an option is often favored by both the federal agency and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC).
The Energy Department said its approach would protect human health and safety, along with wildlife and plant-life, while minimizing the land disturbance to Area IV by avoiding remediation of sections with little need for cleanup.
The new EIS report declares DOE “now intends to clean up only 38,000 of the 1.6 million cubic yards of soil it admits are contaminated,” the Los Angeles branch of Physicians for Social Responsibility said in a press release. The federal agency also proposes to not actively remediate much of the contaminated groundwater at the site, but to just leave it to “naturally attenuate,” the group added.
Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Calif.) said the proposed EIS falls far short of DOE’s pledge for a full cleanup.
“I am deeply disappointed with the Department of Energy’s proposed clean-up decision, which breaks the department’s prior commitments under the Administrative Orders on Consent (AOCs),” said Brownley, who represents the area. “Clean-up of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory is a high public health and safety priority, and my involvement with the clean-up goes back to my time in the California Assembly as a principal co-author of SB990, state legislation to require the full clean-up. I urge the California Department of Toxic Substances Control to ensure that the AOCs are upheld.”
The Energy Department, however, said chemical and radioactive constituents are not spread evenly across the affected site. So achieving the most remediation for the buck means focusing on key contamination hot spots, according to the EIS. The Energy Department said it would remove 38,000 cubic yards of soil, rather than removing hundreds of thousands of additional cubic yards, much of which does not really require remediation. Taking out the extra volume of soil would require thousands of additional heavy-duty truck trips off-site.
The Energy Department would tear down 18 buildings and associated facilities it owns at the site, then haul off the resulting waste and debris. Seven of the agency’s buildings in Area IV are metal sheds used for material storage; the other 11 are “more-substantial structures,” including pre-fabricated metal buildings constructed on concrete platforms.
Building removal work should disturb less than 9 acres. About 1,500 round trips by truck will probably be needed to haul away resulting debris for disposal or potential recycling.
Three facilities at the Radioactive Materials Handling Facility (RMHF) and the two facilities comprising the Hazardous Waste Management Facility (HWMF) would be closed under DTSC-approved Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) facility closure plans. The 1950s-era RMHF buildings have been used to package and temporarily hold radioactive waste. The HWMF operated from the 1970s through 1997 for storage and treatment of non-radiological alkaline metal wastes
On groundwater remediation, DOE favors a hybrid approach involving both treatment and monitoring. The Energy Department said its approach would take about six years and use about 10.5 million gallons of water, compared to up to 26 years and 45 million gallons involved in some of the more active remediation options.
The Energy Department must still issue a record of decision detailing the cleanup work. The ROD could come any time after a 30-day waiting period after issuance of the EIS.
The Energy Department’s cost for soil remediation, expected to be the biggest part of the expense, could be about $43 million, according to the EIS.
Woolsey Fire Didn’t Spread SSFL Contamination, State Says
Smoke and ash from the recent Woolsey Fire did not spread radiation or contamination from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to neighboring communities, two California agencies said Wednesday.
In an interim report, the California Environmental Protection Agency and DTSC said field inspections and computer simulations turned up no evidence the fire carried contamination off-site. In addition to fears of smoke from contaminated vegetation and soil, local residents were also concerned that contamination might migrate via rain that followed the fire.
“Taken together, the observations and data from these investigations provide multiple lines of evidence that no radiation or hazardous materials from SSFL were detected in communities following the Woolsey fire,” the report says.
The fire was 100 percent contained as of Nov. 21, after burning almost 97,000 acres and destroying 1,500 buildings, with 20 percent of the charred structures in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The blaze did burn a section of Santa Susana on Nov. 8, and damaged portions of the site’s stormwater collection and treatment systems. A DTSC spokesman did not immediately know Thursday how many acres burned at SSFL.
Interagency teams found facilities that previously handled radioactive or chemical materials were not damaged. Flames did not reach the former Radioactive Materials Handling Facility, the Hazardous Waste Treatment Facility, or the area where the Sodium Reactor Experiment was once located, the agencies said.
Air samples around these areas over three weeks show radiation consistent with background levels, according to the report,
Physicians for Social Responsibility had aired concerns about the potential for off-site spread of radioactive materials from the fire.
“The DTSC has repeatedly lied to our community about the SSFL’s contamination and cleanup. Now they claim they can’t detect any contamination on the site, even though their previous tests found extensive chemical and radioactive toxins there before,” PSR-Los Angeles Associate Director Denise Duffield said by email Wednesday.
The California-based Courthouse News Service reported Thursday that area residents are pushing the administration of outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown (D) for a more detailed study of the toxins found around the SSFL site.
