NEW FIELD-LAB STUDIES DUE ILLNESS IN FACILITY'S NEIGHBORHOODS EXAMINED.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Triggered by studies showing unexpectedly high cancer rates among Rocketdyne workers, two long-awaited studies will be released tonight analyzing illnesses in neighborhoods surrounding the company's Santa Susana Field Lab.

Residents in the shadow of the former nuclear research and rocket engine test lab had pushed for a community health study for more than 15 years. Many hope the new studies will tell them whether their homes are in the path of radioactive and toxic contamination.

But professor Deborah Glik of the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health warned the new research is not a smoking gun linking the Boeing Co.'s lab to cancer cases in the community.

``Both studies raise concerns about environmental contamination and its potential impact, but they're not conclusive because it's really difficult with these kinds of studies to be conclusive,'' Glik explained.

Rather, the studies, which will be presented in full detail tonight, suggest that agencies need to closely monitor the lab cleanup and residents should be aware that there may be a higher risk of some cancers in the neighborhoods near the lab.

Glik is the director of UCLA's Health and Media Research Group, which was hired in 2000 by the federal government to conduct independent, public health studies around the field lab. Its budget was $700,000.

For four years, researchers have combed through cancer registries, analyzed available chemical and radiological data, and created computer models to show how pollutants could have migrated away from the lab.

Though she knows it will be difficult, lab neighbor and activist Barbara Johnson is hoping the studies will answer her lingering questions. Was her Santa Susana Knolls neighborhood - which is directly downhill from the lab - tainted by high levels of contamination? Was her breast cancer caused by lab pollutants?

``I'm hoping for a moral victory,'' Johnson said. ``But I'm just happy that somebody is in fact looking at it. That's a big victory for the community that somebody is looking at the community impact.''

Lab neighbors have pushed for a community health study since 1989 when the Daily News revealed extensive radioactive contamination at the Department of Energy's former nuclear research site, which is owned by Boeing.

Both state and federal officials said at the time they found no evidence of a public health threat.

In the years following, researchers found higher than average rates of bladder cancer in the West Hills and Chatsworth neighborhoods close to the lab, and higher than normal rates of lung and other cancers.

But both studies had problems and residents pleaded for more thorough community health analysis.

Then two landmark UCLA studies, released in 1997 and 1999 showed lab workers who handled radiation and a rocket fuel chemical had higher rates of cancer.

Those findings again prompted calls to study whether neighbors were at risk.

In 1999, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry did a one-month preliminary review and concluded the community wasn't exposed to chemicals or radiation that could cause health problems.

Neighbors and politicians lambasted the study as inadequate and the ATSDR hired the Eastern Research Group in Massachusetts to conduct an independent public health study. ERG subcontracted with Glik, UCLA chemical engineering professor Yoram Cohen and Hal Morgenstern, who is now chairman of the epidemiology department at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

--The work group will meet at 6:30 tonight at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center at 3050 Los Angeles Avenue in Simi Valley. For information on the UCLA studies, visit www.ph.ucla.edu/erg.

ROCKETDYNE CLEANUP

Here are key dates in the contamination and cleanup at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory:

--1989: The Daily News reveals extensive radioactive and toxic contamination remaining from decades of research and manufacturing work conducted at Rockwell International's Rocketdyne Division at the Santa Susana Field Lab.

--1991: Higher-than-average rates of bladder cancer are found among residents of West Hills and Chatsworth, east of the lab. Then-Assemblyman Richard Katz asks to create a citizen oversight panel to oversee the site investigation.

--1997: UCLA researchers release a landmark study that finds a higher rate of cancer deaths among field-lab workers exposed to radiation.

--April 1999: A state Department of Health Services report compiled in 1997, but not released, shows a moderately higher-than-normal incidence of lung and other cancers among people living around the field lab. Another UCLA study finds that lab workers exposed to high levels of a rocket fuel chemical were twice as likely to have died from lung and other cancers as were unexposed co-workers.

--October 1997: A report ordered by then-Gov. Gray Davis finds the Department of Health Services stalled work on a community health study and improperly withheld cancer data about the lab.

--November 1997: In a preliminary study, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concludes the community around the lab is not exposed to chemicals or radiation that could cause health problems.

--2000: The ATSDR hires Eastern Research Group to conduct an independent study of cancer rates in the communities around the field lab and to look at how contamination at the lab could have moved off the site.

--2002: With $200,000 in government funding, the Santa Susana Field Lab Advisory Panel begins its study of off-site contamination in the surrounding community.

--April 2005: Boeing releases a study saying workers exposed to radiation or toxic chemicals may have been more likely to develop leukemia or lung cancer than those who were not exposed, but the overall work force did not suffer higher cancer rates.

--September 2005: Boeing settles an 8-year-old lawsuit and agrees to pay $30 million to more than 100 neighbors who claim they developed cancer and other illnesses after being exposed to contamination from the field lab.

--February 2006: UCLA releases two studies of cancer rates in the community around the field lab and how contamination could have spread there.

SOURCE: Daily News research

CAPTION(S):

2 boxes

Box:

(1) IF YOU GO (see text)

(2) ROCKETDYNE CLEANUP (see text)