SANTA SUSANA PROBE CALLED; STATE EPA TO LOOK INTO RELATIONSHIP.

Byline: Terri Hardy Sacramento Bureau

A division of the state Environmental Protection Agency will investigate questions about the relationship between Rocketdyne and state health officials over operation at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the Simi Hills, officials said Tuesday.

At issue are allegations disclosed in the Daily News that state Department of Health Services officials suppressed a cancer study of residents and cooperated with Rocketdyne company officials to try to get rid of an independent citizens oversight group directing health investigations.

The state EPA's toxic substances control division will conduct ``an independent review outside the DHS,'' said Anita Gore, spokewoman for Grantland Johnson, secretary of the state's Health and Human Services Agency.

Lawmakers, including Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Encino, have pressured Gov. Gray Davis and Johnson for the investigation and called for three top DHS administrators who oversaw health investigations at Rocketdyne to be fired.

In a letter to the head of the state EPA, which oversees the Division of Toxic Substances Control, Johnson said his agency is ``very concerned that a thorough and independent review of Assembly member Kuehl's concerns be performed, and that these concerns be responded to quickly.''

Kuehl's office was pleased but the co-chairman of the oversight committee said he was concerned.

``The DTSC is as captured by Rocketdyne as is the DHS,'' said Daniel Hirsch, co-chairman of the oversight committee, accusing the regulatory agencies of having too close a relationship with the company.

``What is needed is a thorough housecleaning of both agencies,'' said Hirsch, who also is president of the anti-nuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap.

After the Daily News in 1989 reported that radiation and other pollution had been released at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a massive federal cleanup was begun. In 1991, lawmakers - concerned that the DHS was not properly overseeing studies of possible health effects - formed a citizens oversight panel that included scientific experts.

Lawmakers said that over the years, they believe a too-close relationship between Rocketdyne and the DHS has continued. In the meantime, criticism has been raised about the DHS' handling of other health matters, including suppressing a survey it commissioned on the state's smoking ban and failing to track children known to have lead poisoning.

On Monday, the chairman of the state's Joint Legislative Audit Committee said his group would be taking a broader look at the DHS.

Kuehl and others charge that the DHS suppressed a 1997 cancer survey taken of residents around the field laboratory. The document was found earlier this month through a request made under the state's public records act.

Another document discovered was a proposal from Rocketdyne to oust the current citizens oversight panel with a group of the company's handpicked replacements. The DHS followed up with a time-line indication when and how the committee could be replaced.

Rocketdyne and DHS officials have strenuously denied that they have an inappropriate relationship, and insisted they are innocent of wrongdoing.