ROCKETDYNE TO FACE CLASS ACTION; JUDGE'S APPROVAL OPENS WAY FOR THOUSANDS TO JOIN SUIT.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Daily News Staff Writer

A federal judge granted class certification Monday in a case against Rocketdyne, opening the door for hundreds of thousands of residents and workers to join a suit that claims the company contaminated the area with toxic chemicals while manufacturing rocket fuel.

U.S. District Court Judge Audrey B. Collins, who had dismissed a previous attempt at class-action certification nearly a year ago, granted conditional certification based on more specific evidence of potential contamination from the Santa Susana Field Lab and San Fernando Valley facilities.

``It's certainly a watershed event,'' said plaintiff's lawyer A. Barry Cappello.

Rocketdyne believes the statue of limitations has run out on the claim and hopes to reverse Monday's decision, adding that the case is based on ``bad science'' that won't hold up in court, said spokesman Dan Beck.

``It has yet to be proven that there is off-site contamination that caused a health threat to citizens of the community,'' said Beck. ``We think it's based on bad science. . . . We don't think it's going to be held up.''

The case is one of four large lawsuits against the rocket maker following investigations that radiation contaminated portions of its Santa Susana facility near Simi Valley. A University of California, Los Angeles, study in 1997 linked a higher rate of cancer among Rocketdyne workers to radiation exposure at the site, where rockets were assembled and nuclear testing was conducted for decades.

The case in federal court Monday against Rocketdyne's parent company, Boeing North American, Inc., calls for medical monitoring of residents and workers, and compensation for property damaged allegedly by company practices of sending contaminants into the air and water.

Those potentially joining the class action could be residents, workers or property owners in a large area from Simi Valley to the San Diego Freeway, bound roughly by the Ronald Reagan and Ventura freeways, and including communities such as Northridge, Reseda, Canoga Park and Bell Canyon.

The case would stretch back to include residents and workers in the area since 1946, but excludes those who have already been diagnosed with various types of cancers or other illnesses. Those are being handled in separate individual cases, Cappello said.

The case, which had been denied certification status nearly a year ago, used water- and air-testing specialists, who detailed plumes of contamination that could have been spreading from Santa Susana and three San Fernando Valley-area facilities - one in Chatsworth, a site in Canoga Park and a Hughes plant in West Hills - to the community.

Mostly, the case hinges on two contaminants, trichloroethylene, which was used for engine cleaning and has been absorbed into the ground, and chromate solutions that allegedly released chromium emissions into the air, Cappello said.

Rocketdyne officials have scoffed at the plaintiffs' case, saying further testimony would show no off-site contamination posing a risk to residents or workers.

``We feel they just don't have a case to be made,'' Beck said.

Plus, company officials believe the statute of limitation has lapsed on the claim, and point to a pair of state class-action cases that were virtually thrown out of court earlier this month because too much time had passed, Beck said.

Rocketdyne lawyers plan to try to overturn the judge's ruling in coming weeks.