NASA razes rocket engine test stands (Thousand Oaks Acorn)

“At the May 13 meeting, Daniel Hirsch, longtime nuclear policy watchdog and president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, criticized the plan. Hirsch and his UC Santa Cruz students helped uncover contamination decades ago, sparking ongoing advocacy.

He called the plan ‘just one more in a long set of breaches of cleanup promises’ from all the agencies involved, including Boeing and the DOE, putting the public further at risk.

Hirsch recalled the site’s nuclear and rocket testing history ‘that could end our world,’ and said ‘grossly irresponsible practices,’ like dumping a million gallons of TCE, caused widespread contamination.

‘In 2007 a consent order required full cleanup of soil contamination and a permanent groundwater remedy by 2017. It’s now 2025 and none of those promises have been kept,’ Hirsch said, noting agencies keep shirking their cleanup obligations.

He criticized the plan for addressing only three of 53 TCE-contaminated wells, which remain thousands of times above legal limits even after treatment.

Hirsch noted the plan relies heavily on monitored natural attenuation—a process where contamination is left to slowly break down on its own over decades or centuries. He argued this approach leaves nearby communities vulnerable for generations.

He called the plan ‘sad beyond measure’ and said the failure to keep cleanup promises ‘threaten(s) the health of hundreds of thousands of people who live nearby.'”

Read the full article from the Thousand Oaks Acorn by clicking here.