WATER BOARD REVIEWS BOEING POLLUTION WAIVER.

Byline: KERRY CAVANAUGH Staff Writer

Under pressure from environmental groups and a state senator, the state water board said Wednesday that it will reconsider a decision that gave the Santa Susana Field Lab an eight-month break from complying with tough new pollution rules.

The decision by the state's ``Supreme Court of water'' overrules a controversial order in March by board member and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee Jerry Secundy that froze pollution limits until a hearing later this year to determine whether the lab's water permit is too strict.

In his decision, Secundy agreed with Boeing's argument that the company could face penalties, bad publicity and citizen lawsuits if it violated the permit while the review is pending.

But environmentalists immediately protested the decision and Sen. Sheila Kuehl threatened to hold up the water board's budget unless the full board reconsidered Secundy's decision.

``The decision appeared to put the interest of an industrial polluter above the protection of the public,'' said David Beckman, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

``I would hope this (new decision) signals an awareness within the State Water Resources Control Board that when it comes to major discharges of pollution at a rocket test facility upstream of neighbors, that the most important and fundamental goal the water board should be going for is (protecting the public) and not giving Boeing a free ride.''

Boeing spokeswoman Inger Hodgson said the company hadn't received formal notice that the water board would reconsider the decision, and she couldn't comment until seeing that.

In the past, Boeing has said the lab's water permit is too stringent and the company needs more time to comply with regulations, particularly given the lab's size and terrain and the fact that most of the water leaving the site is stormwater.

Boeing's 2,800-acre Santa Susana Field Lab sits in the Simi Hills on the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The site was used for nuclear energy research from the late 1940s through 1988 and conducted regular rocket engine tests until late last year.

The debate over the lab's water permit began in 2004, when the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board set strict new limits on pollutants that flow off the hilltop lab in surfacewater and stormwater.

That water runs in local creeks through communities in west San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley.

Between July 2005 and November 2005, Boeing received 71 permit violations for higher than allowed levels of dioxins, mercury and other contaminants.

Last year, Boeing announced that a federal grand jury had subpoenaed records monitoring stormwater pollution leaving the field lab.

Just last month, Los Angeles water officials sent a letter to Boeing warning that water leaving the lab had higher than allowed levels of dioxins, copper and strontium-90, a radioactive contaminant earlier found in 1993 in the soil just outside the lab's property line. The lab later bought the property.

Boeing had asked Los Angeles officials to relax the permit for four years while the company developed a plan to prevent pollution from moving off-site, but the board refused.

``Our history with Boeing has showed that when we take a more stringent stand, then the permittee has pursued compliance more aggressively,'' said H. David Nahai, chairman of the L.A. regional water board.

Boeing appealed that decision and the full state water board will review the field lab permit before November to determine if it's too strict.

Two of the five seats on the board are vacant and environmental groups have published editorials asking Schwarzenegger to appoint clean-water advocates to the board rather than people who have lobbied for or have ties to businesses and industries regulated by the water board.

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com(213) 978-0390