DRILL MORE TEST WELLS, BOEING TOLD.Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer State toxics officials said Friday they have warned Boeing Co. that it needs to work more diligently to determine whether contaminated contaminated, v 1. made radioactive by the addition of small quantities of radioactive material. 2. made contaminated by adding infective or radiographic materials. 3. an infective surface or object. groundwater under its Santa Susana Santa Susana can refer to several places:
In a memo sent this week to Boeing, state geologists said recent tests showed water can easily spread through the fractured rock beneath the lab site, contradicting the company's ``matrix diffusion'' theory that rock acts as a sponge and prevents pollutants from reaching its neighbors. The state recommended that Boeing drill more test wells to better understand how groundwater can migrate rather than rely so heavily on computer models of the contamination. ``The computer modeling is good, but we can't really determine if this plume is moving - and if this whole theory of ``matrix diffusion'' is true - if we don't go out and actually collect samples,'' said Ron Baker Ronald Baker (born November 19, 1954 in Gary, Indiana) was a former American football offensive lineman between 1978 and 1988 for the Baltimore Colts and the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL. He played college football at Oklahoma State University. , DTSC DTSC Department of Toxic Substances Control DTSC DARCOM Technical Steering Committee spokesman. Boeing and regulators are debating whether a potent plume of perchlorate perchlorate: see chlorate. , a rocket-fuel byproduct by·prod·uct or by-prod·uct n. 1. Something produced in the making of something else. 2. A secondary result; a side effect. Noun 1. , has spread from the Rocketdyne site down to Simi Valley Simi Valley (sē`mē, sĭm`ē), city (1990 pop. 100,217), Ventura co., SW Calif. in an oil, fruit, and farm region; laid out 1887, inc. 1969. and the nearby Brandeis-Bardin Institute. Critics charge the state and Boeing have been debating too long. ``DTSC has been engaged in this kind of exchange with Boeing since 1999, and there's still almost no cleanup of the chemicals,'' said Dan Hirsch, a Santa Susana Field Lab watchdog who heads the Committee to Bridge the Gap. ``There's no sign of action of occurring that will really protect people,'' he said. Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said company officials were surprised by the memo. ``If there are data gaps that need to be filled, as DTSC says, then we'll work with the agency to fill that,'' he said. The company has conducted extensive groundwater testing and is confident in its theory, Beck said. ``There just isn't strong evidence that contamination has moved off site,'' he said Meanwhile, Boeing and DTSC are digging a 400-foot deep groundwater testing well at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute site where perchlorate was found at unsafe levels in some tests but not detected in others. The old well - an artesian well that flowed into a bathtub for use as a water trough for animals - was not intended for testing. The new well will allow officials to collect samples at specific depths and should provide a more accurate test for perchlorate, a chemical linked to thyroid disfunction dis·func·tion n. Variant of dysfunction. . Kerry Cavanaugh, (818) 713-3746 kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com |
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