Resolution in Support of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Cleanup

WHEREAS, a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959 and numerous other accidents, spills, and releases resulted in widespread radioactive and hazardous chemical contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a former nuclear and rocket testing facility in Ventura County just outside the cities SSFL site is eligible for placement on the Superfund List of the nation’s most polluted sites; and

WHEREAS, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have entered into agreements with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to restore the site to its natural state by cleaning up all detectable contamination on their parts of the property to background levels defined by DTSC, but Boeing, which controls the rest of the property, is resisting full cleanup and advocating that most of the contamination of the entire SSFL site not be removed, and neighbors of the site are concerned about truck traffic from the cleanup; and

WHEREAS more than half a million people live within ten miles of the site, and federally-sponsored studies have found elevated cancer rates among those who worked at the site and in the offsite population associated with how close they live to the site;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Ventura County and California Democratic Party call for a full cleanup to background levels while mitigating cleanup effects on neighbors including by on-site processing of some contaminants and consideration of alternate routes for removal of material that cannot be decontaminated on-site; and

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Ventura County and California Democratic Party call on the state of California Governor and DTSC to assure that the agreements with NASA and DOE to clean up all contamination to background are fully and rigorously carried out and calls on the Governor, the legislature, DTSC,and EPA to use all their authority to require Boeing to fully clean up the contamination on the remaining portions of SSFL, and will send this resolution to all parties identified in this paragraph.

Sponsor: RL Miller, Chair of the California Democratic Party Environmental Caucus

Passed by the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee on 10/29/2013