RADIOACTIVE TRITIUM FOUND IN HIGHEST LEVELS YET AT LAB.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY - High levels of radioactive tritium were detected in two new test wells at the Santa Susana Field Lab, confirming the existence of a radioactive plume at the former nuclear research facility, officials said Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Energy drilled the test wells after discovering tritium earlier this year in the groundwater at the northern edge of the research site in the Simi Hills, where Rocketdyne operated a nuclear reactor. The DOE now plans to drill additional wells to determine the source of the plume, its size, and the speed and direction of its movement.

``The reactor was in operation 40 years ago and the plume still appears close to the source. It hasn't moved off site,'' said Majelle Lee, project manager with Boeing Co., which owns the lab.

The tainted groundwater is not used for drinking and does not pose a health risk to the public or neighbors, officials said.

Neighbors and critics of the laboratory are wary of the DOE's results and questioned whether the radioactive contamination is more extensive than the company suspects.

``The question is what got off the site and what else was released from the site,'' said Dan Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear-watchdog group.

The DOE is nearing the end of its 15-year-long cleanup of the former nuclear laboratory. The agency has been investigating a handful of sites where tritium may have been released, based on 40-year-old records detailing how radioactive materials were handled.

A groundwater sample taken in March from a test well drilled next to the site of an experimental reactor found tritium at 80,000 picocuries per liter - or four times the drinking-water standard.

In August, consultants drilled two wells near the tritium hit and found tritium at 80,000 and 16,000 picocuries per liter, respectively.

Tritium has not yet been detected in a cluster of monitoring wells located downhill from the site. It has, however, been found at background levels in two wells drilled nearly 1,500 feet away at the Sodium Reactor Experiment site, where the largest and most famous reactor sustained a meltdown in 1959, officials said.

The DOE will conduct more groundwater testing this fall at both locations.

Tritium, a byproduct of a nuclear reaction, has been found at the lab before, but never at such high levels.

In 1991, it was detected at 5,400 picocuries per liter on nearby property owned by the Brandeis Bardin Institute, which runs a Jewish camp and educational facility.

And in 1993, tritium, strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 238 were found in soil samples taken from the camp along the Rocketdyne property line. The readings were considered low enough not to pose a health threat, although Boeing purchased a patch of camp property closest to the lab.

DOE project manager Mike Lopez said the agency will probably conduct an environmental report next year and hold public hearings on what to do about the contaminated groundwater.

The federal government funded nuclear research at the lab, which was run by Rocketdyne, now a division of Boeing, from the 1950s through the 1980s. The Daily News first disclosed in 1989 that a DOE survey had found massive radioactive and chemical contamination at the site, triggering a cleanup.

The DOE is nearing the end of the site decontamination and last year announced its plan to remove about 1 percent of the tainted soil, prompting community outrage and a notice from the Natural Resources Defense Council that it would sue over the cleanup.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which provided some oversight of the cleanup until last year, said the plan could leave the former nuclear test site unsafe for even casual picnicking.

The DOE has come under fire for dropping out of the Santa Susana Field Lab Working Group, a multiagency and community group that reviews the cleanup in a forum of experts and concerned neighbors. Instead the DOE is holding its own public meetings.

``The community has totally lost faith not only in Rocketdyne but the Department of Energy because they have given us bad information in the past,'' said Barbara Johnson, a lab neighbor who's been following the cleanup for more than a decade.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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