Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 2, 2007
4. Water Quality -
Boeing is cut slack over dirty rainwater
A revised permit by the regional water board lessens the responsibility for contaminated storm runoff at the Santa Susana lab.
By Gregory W. Griggs,
Boeing Co. obtained a revised permit Thursday for handling rainwater runoff at its heavily contaminated and now shuttered nuclear power and rocket-testing lab in the hills above
The revisions, which were unanimously approved by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, essentially lowered the risk of Boeing getting fined for exceeding mandated contamination levels of storm runoff.
The board's action also gave the company amnesty for any toxins that were soaked up and washed away by rain between January and August last year, after wildfires destroyed vast amounts of soil-stabilizing vegetation.
The revisions to Boeing's 2004 water discharge permit followed more than six hours of discussions Thursday at a public hearing in
Environmentalists urged the water board to vote against the revisions, contending that the former Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab was responsible for decades of environmental abuse. Although some members of the water quality control board acknowledged that the lab was the worst contamination site they had ever considered, they appeared to be swayed by the argument that Boeing had inherited many of its contamination woes from the site's previous caretakers.
"If I had contaminated land like this . . . my neighbors would have forced me to clean this up a long time ago," said outgoing
"I think it's at a point now where Boeing has to be a good neighbor," he said. "They took on their predecessors' business and it's time that the current leadership of Boeing show they're a good neighbor . . . and show people they care."
Rainwater runoff from the lab, at the border of
Tracy J. Egoscue, new executive officer of the regional board, said the agency removed eight of the 18 compliance, or testing, points at the field lab based on changes to Boeing's operation, such as the discontinuation of rocket testing in March last year.
Environmentalists who monitor remediation of five decades worth of radioactive and chemical pollutants remaining at the lab say this is another example of Boeing using its political muscle to avoid protecting public health.
"The pollution board acted as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the polluter and gave away the entire store after making some nice statements to the contrary," said Daniel Hirsch, president of the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap. "They shafted the community."
Boeing spokeswoman Blythe Jameson said the company is replacing seven on-site water-treatment facilities with a centralized system to improve groundwater treatment at the lab.
In September, Boeing paid more than $471,000 to settle a state enforcement action for allowing excessive levels of lead, mercury and other toxins to flow into surrounding canyons, Arroyo Simi and Bell Creek.
Thursday's vote comes weeks after Boeing announced plans to donate 2,400 of the lab's 2,850 acres to the state, once they have been cleaned up, for use as open space and parkland.
Boeing said about 1,000 undeveloped acres along the southern portion of the lab could become open to the public as soon as 2009.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rocket2nov02,1,7555068.story?ctrack=2&cset=true
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