ACTIVISTS BLAST DECISION GIVING BOEING MORE TIME ON CLEANUP.

Byline: HARRISON SHEPPARD Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO -- State environmental officials on Wednesday gave the Boeing Co. more time to meet stricter pollution standards at its Santa Susana Field Laboratory, an action blasted by community activists who say it could delay cleanup at the site for years.

Boeing had asked the State Water Resources Control Board to overturn key parts of a Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board decision that imposed strict new standards for pollution control on the site. The field lab has been blamed for contamination of local groundwater and allegedly caused a range of health problems for residents.

The state board rejected parts of Boeing's appeal, but it said the Los Angeles board needed to give the company an unspecified amount of additional time to comply with the new standards, which were set in 2004 and revised earlier this year.

``It was an outrageous cave-in to a huge polluter,'' said Daniel Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a community group that has monitored pollution at the site for years. ``The damage has been mitigated some, but it will delay enforcement of the pollution laws probably by a couple of years.''

The state board sent the issue back to the Los Angeles board with an order to draft a new schedule of compliance with the stricter rules.

Board denies helping Boeing

The state board also approved a request for the local board to work on ways to not double-count pollution violations when contaminated materials pass between multiple monitoring points on the site.

State board members denied they were catering to Boeing's wishes, saying the new schedule could be as tight as the Los Angeles board feels is appropriate.

``I think it's an incredibly stringent permit, and we'll support it,'' state board member Arthur Baggett Jr. said. ``It is an enforceable permit. This isn't giving away the store.''

But Los Angeles board members said it would be at least five months before they could even draft and approve a new schedule, much less implement it, while activists noted that Boeing could then file another appeal of the schedule, holding up the process another year or more.

Fire caused damage to site

Boeing representatives said while they did not get everything they sought, such as a change in the methodology used to calculate pollution on the site, they were glad that the board gave the company more time.

Company officials argued that they needed more time in part because the Topanga Fire had caused damage to the site and to devices used to stem the flow of contaminated water.

``We're happy,'' said Sharon Rubalcava, an attorney representing Boeing. ``Happy that the board chose to remand to the regional board, and recognized that it was unreasonable for the regional board to impose new limits following the fire without providing a compliance schedule. And we're glad they recognized that argument we made.''

More than a dozen San Fernando Valley-area residents traveled to Sacramento for the hearing, which stretched into the evening more than six hours, causing some to miss flights home as board members haggled over the wording of the order, line by line, and issued numerous technical changes.

Blame for health problems

Residents who testified told of a wide range of health problems they and their neighbors suffered, including cancers and blindness, which they attribute to pollution from the site. They also spoke of frustration with the process of cleaning up the contaminants.

Elizabeth Crawford, who runs the www.rocketdynewatch.org Web site, read a statement from a woman who lives two miles from the site and has an infant daughter who suffered from cancer in her eyes and a son with ADD and other problems. She listed other families who live near the site and suffer what appears to be an unusually high concentration of health problems such as leukemia, cancer and tumors.

Crawford said the state board ``gave it away to Boeing.''

``My main concern is that this gives Boeing additional leeway to come into compliance with laws they should have been complying with 10 years ago,'' Crawford said.

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com

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