[CPEO-MEF] Boeing Must Find Source of Contaminant

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California
L.A. TIMES
Boeing Must Find Source of Contaminant
Agency issues the order after discovering rocket fuel ingredient in a
well near Rocketdyne lab. The company denies responsibility.
By Amanda Covarrubias, Times Staff Writer
June 26, 2003

A state regulatory agency has detected unsafe levels of a contaminant
used in rocket fuel in a well about a mile from Boeing's Rocketdyne
testing site in the Santa Susana Mountains, officials said Wednesday.

Because of the recent discovery of perchlorate downhill from the
mountaintop laboratory, Boeing has been ordered to conduct extensive
water and soil tests at the well to determine the contamination's
source, said Gerard Abrams, geologist and project director for the
Department of Toxic Substances Control.

"We think it's essential to help us understand how perchlorate arrived
at this well," Abrams said. "It will help us to understand what happened
down in Simi Valley."

The state agency has given the aerospace giant an Aug. 18 deadline to
come up with a plan to determine if the contamination on property owned
by the Brandeis-Bardin Institute came from the Santa Susana Field
Laboratory, Abrams said Wednesday in a briefing at the agency's offices
in Glendale.

The action is significant because Boeing has argued for years that it is
not the cause of off-site contamination. If Rocketdyne is found to be
the source, Boeing could be liable for millions of dollars in cleanup
costs — on top of millions it is already spending to rid the former
nuclear research and rocket-testing laboratory of toxic chemicals.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-perc26jun26,1,2206314.story

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