EDITORIAL DELAY UPON DELAY TIMETABLE FOR RAPID SANTA SUSANA CLEANUP IS OVERDUE.

A state board's decision to give Boeing more time to clean up the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory would be comical if the health and environmental consequences weren't so severe. What, a half-century wasn't enough?

The facility was the site of Cold War nuclear and rocket contamination, including a nuclear meltdown in 1959.

Of course, nothing was done about the mess for decades, as firms that have owned the site and government officials conspired to keep the matter secret -- until the Daily News exposed the contamination problem. That was in 1989, 17 years ago.

Since then, various government bodies and Boeing, the current owner of the site, have found one reason after another to postpone a long-overdue cleanup.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board imposed strict new standards for pollution control at the site in 2004, then revised them earlier this year. But Boeing appealed to the State Water Resources Control Board, seeking more time to get into compliance, and the state agreed.

Now, it may be that Boeing has a righteous case, and tougher new standards necessarily take more time to meet. But it's maddening how the entire process seems to drag on endlessly. The local board says coming up with a new timetable will take five months, then Boeing could appeal again, and the cleanup could get delayed years longer.

Meanwhile, a public-health hazard that many blame for contaminating groundwater and causing all sorts of illnesses remains. All because government and corporate officials have preferred to shift blame and delay rather than do the right thing.