EPA GIVES UP KEY ROLE IN CLEANUP OF FIELD LAB.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave up the fight Wednesday for tougher standards for the cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, saying it's powerless to force the U.S. Department of Energy to comply with its stringent decontamination goals.

EPA officials said they would no longer lead the community work group overseeing the controversial cleanup at the Rocketdyne facility in the Simi Hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley.

The announcement, made at the work group's meeting Wednesday night, shocked many activists as well as both California senators and the local congressman who hoped the EPA would push the Department of Energy and Boeing Co. to thoroughly decontaminate the lab.

``You're our only shot to protect public health here,'' West Hills resident Christina Walsh pleaded with the EPA officials at the meeting.

The two agencies have clashed over the DOE's cleanup plan, which the EPA said would leave too much radiation on the property, making the land unsafe for anything more than limited camping or picnicking.

However, the EPA has no legal authority over the DOE and the environmental agency's comments have done little to alter the DOE's cleanup plans.

``Our job has been to come in and make sure the DOE is cleaning up the site adequately,'' said Arlene Kabei, associate director of the EPA's Waste Management Division. ``We've tried to compel change. It's time people look to responsible parties who have the authority and hold them accountable.''

Without the EPA at the helm, the future of the work group and its funding is in limbo. The work group was established to bring all regulatory agencies together and allow the public an opportunity to learn about the cleanup and comment directly to the regulators.

The EPA could attend the group's meetings and offer technical assistance to the community, but only if the often acrimonious work group is effective.

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt on Tuesday asking why the agency was quitting its leadership of the work group.

``It is difficult to understand why the EPA has announced its intention to reduce its role in the cleanup process while simultaneously ... concluding the 'current plans to clean up the site would leave the former nuclear test site unsafe for even casual picnicking,''' Gallegly wrote. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer also weighed in, saying they would urge the Department of Energy to follow the EPA's recommendations.

The controversy surrounds the DOE's plan to remove just 2 percent of the soil on the contaminated site, which would lead to an additional 1-in-3,333 cancer risk.

The DOE said the cleanup falls into the EPA's acceptable risk range of one in a million to one in 10,000 additional cancers from exposure to radiation on the site.

``I would be delighted to live on that site. ... I would have no qualms about my granddaughter living on that site,'' said Ron Kathren, a Washington State University professor and DOE consultant. ``The risk, if any, would be trivial.''

The EPA said previous DOE surveys of radiological contamination at the site were inadequate and urged the agency to thoroughly study the soil.

Also Wednesday the EPA announced that the field lab does not qualify for the national list of priority cleanups, which would have given the EPA power to regulate the decontamination.

The former nuclear site scored only a 1.08 on the EPA's hazard-ranking system, which looks at the potential threats to human health from such sites. National priority list sites score at least a 28. That doesn't mean the field lab is safe, officials explained. It means the site doesn't pose an immediate, severe risk to people living near the lab.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com