Officials call on Boeing to join deal to clean up LA-area site of 1959 nuclear accident

Letter calls on Boeing to join CA lab cleanup deal

LOS ANGELES — A group of local and state officials have called on Boeing to sign an agreement committing the company to completely cleaning up the site of a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred in 1959 just outside Los Angeles.

“Every day that the cleanup is delayed is another day that the public remains at risk,” said Louise Rishoff, district director for Assemblywoman Julia Brownley of Santa Monica.

Last week the Department of Energy and NASA announced similar agreements with the state to remove all contamination from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site. Residents cheered the move, which commits to a 2017 cleanup date.

Wednesday’s letter calls on Boeing to accept its responsibility for the cleanup. Boeing officials did not comment on the letter but said they are reviewing the agreement and “remain open to continued dialogue with the state.”

During the Cold War, workers at the site tested thousands of rockets and experimented with nuclear reactors, leaving contaminants that many believed trickled into the communities below, causing breast cancer, thyroid conditions and a rare eye cancer among infants.

The cleanup has been decades in the making and has been complicated by the number of owners and responsible parties at the site. NASA owns the rocket-testing areas, the Department of Energy owns the buildings where the partial meltdown occurred, and Boeing owns much of the property underneath.

The deal would require a high-level cleanup in the most polluted parts of the site.