Judge Rebukes DOE Over Lab Cleanup

U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti said Wednesday that the agency has violated and continues to violate federal law in its cleanup of pollutants at the former research lab in eastern Ventura County, where a meltdown occurred in 1959.

"This is a positive turn in what has otherwise been a very dark story," said James Birkelund, senior project attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued the agency over its cleanup plan. "The Bush administration was trying to cut corners at the expense of public health, and the judge wasn't having any part of it."

Conti also barred the Energy Department from transferring ownership of the Santa Susana property until it conducts a more thorough environmental review of its cleanup operations at the facility.

The 4.5-square-mile site about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles was used for nuclear research for four decades beginning in the 1940s. Rocket engines also were tested there.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap sued the Energy Department alleging its cleanup plan for the property would leave dangerous levels of radioactive material and other toxic chemicals in the soil.

Most of the lab is owned by the Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power Division of Boeing Co. However, the Energy Department is responsible for the area until cleanup is complete.

Boeing Co. spokeswoman Blythe Jameson said the company would withhold comment on the court ruling.

Tom Welch, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said he had not read the ruling and could not immediately comment.

Energy Department officials have said the site would pose no significant threat to human health or the environment after it's cleaned up. But watchdogs and critics have demanded that a full environmental impact statement be prepared and that the site be cleaned up to tougher U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.