FIELD LAB CLEANUP WORRIES EXPERTS; SANTA SUSANA EFFORTS MAY NOT BE ENOUGH.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Daily News Staff Writer

As crews are removing tons of dirt and closing off buildings as part of the federally mandated cleanup at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Lab, some environmental experts are questioning just how much nuclear contamination is being left behind.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with recent backing from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has stepped up its call for stricter standards - 300 times higher than those now in use - in a widening debate with the Department of Energy over how much cancer risk is acceptable.

``I think DOE comes at it from what's practical,'' said Tom Kelly, the EPA's project manager for the site. ``We're coming at it from the view of what's health-protective.''

Kelly said the agency simply wants to take a look at the feasibility of imposing stricter standards, in part because Santa Susana is a facility that environmental officials believe has the potential to be cleaned up.

``We're not trying to make an island of purity,'' said Kelly. ``Part of why we pushed this is because it could be feasible.''

For the Energy Department, which granted a $148 million contract to Boeing, Rocketdyne's owner, to clean up its 90-acre corner of the sprawling field lab, standards could send costs skyrocketing and extend the completion date beyond the projected 2006.

``It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know it's going to cost more and take longer,'' said Roger Liddle, director of environmental restoration for the Energy Department.

``We're going to do the right thing,'' he said. ``We're stewards of a whole lot of your money. We have to make sure we do what we do in a cost-effective manner.''

The EPA is pushing for federal toxic guidelines which allow a one-in-a-million cancer risk - determined by a range of factors such as how much contaminated soil is sucked into the lungs and how much dirt is eaten by a child playing outdoors.

Those guidelines are a world away from the 3-in-10,000 risk the Energy Department is using to clean up its 90 acres of the sprawling 2,600-acre field lab, where Rocketdyne conducted nuclear testing for decades for the DOE.

As a self-regulating agency, DOE set its standards based on those established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the concurrence of the state Department of Health Services.

Community activists say meetings to determine those standards should have been held in public, with input from the interagency work group formed by local elected officials in the wake of disclosures of contamination at the site.

``This was one of the things they didn't want to talk about,'' said work group member Joe Lyou, from the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap.

``The cleanup criteria are the most important issue having to do with making that site safe for future use. We've been asking about criteria since the beginning of the work group,'' he said. ``For them to sign off on these cleanup standards without telling the public, I think, breeches the trust that they claim they'd like to establish with the community.''

But spokesmen for Boeing and the federal agencies say holding the debate in public could not have changed regulations already set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Still, activists see it as yet another example of what they claim is a questionable relationship between the company and the regulatory agencies responsible for being watchdogs over cleanup.

However, the DOE's Liddle says that while his agency had not considered stricter standards at the outset of the cleanup, it is willing to consider them now.

The site has been undergoing a massive cleanup since the Daily News reported in 1989 that radiation and chemical contamination had been found there.

A pair of UCLA studies, including one released last month, have showed higher cancer mortality rates among workers exposed to radiation and a chemical called hydrazine, used in rocket engine testing at the site.

Various lawsuits are pending, including a class-action suit that includes hundreds of thousands of potential neighborhood plaintiffs. And community and legislative leaders have been pressing for a broader study of the health impacts of Rocketdyne's operations on the residents.

Nuclear activities were shut down, and the lab is now being cleaned to ``residential standards'' - even though Rocketdyne has said it has no intention of using the property for anything other than its historic mission as a field lab for space testing.

That means hauling truckloads of dirt - 10,000 acre-feet alone from the Sodium Disposal Facility, where cleanup crews hit bedrock pulling out contaminated soil - and decommissioning buildings contaminated with radiation.

Rocketdyne officials say they are caught up in a political debate that has taken over what should be a scientific discussion.

``Lower standards are not required and will not be required,'' said Phil Rutherford, a nuclear engineer and Rocketdyne's manager for radiation safety. ``I would like to think that science would overcome politics when the scientists get down and start discussing this.''