“A Navy official recently told the community that it considers recent retesting data reflecting elevated levels of the radioactive isotope Strontium-90 on the development site of the old Hunters Point shipyard to be unreliable and ‘skewed.’” “But an EPA official involved in overseeing the cleanup of the contaminated site, warned the Navy against dismissing the…
“In 2007, Boeing signed an agreement with California to make 1,900 acres clean enough that people could live on the land and eat vegetables from their gardens. But most of that cleanup never happened. Now, Boeing is pursuing an unorthodox strategy that could enable it to bypass cleaning up much of the land. The company is using…
“Environmental groups concerned about cost and safety issues at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in San Luis Obispo County on California’s central coast thought they’d scored a big win in 2018 when a Joint Proposal was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to retire the aging plant by 2025. But like a zombie,…
“Four environmental organizations once again put the NRC on notice that the agency would violate federal law if it accepts Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E’s) October 31 proposal to resurrect and fast-track its review of PG&E’s long-abandoned 2009 license renewal application for the twin Diablo Canyon reactors.” To read the full article, click here.
“In the long-running battle for environmental justice, the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco is a crucial beachhead. The Navy and EPA have been trying to clean up the radioactive site for decades … But a series of remediation scandals and controversies have plagued the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, which has been called ‘a…
Jeff Ruch, Pacific director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), recently published an op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner. He writes, “As U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enters her last weeks in leadership, she has the unique opportunity to leave her city an invaluable gift that has eluded it for decades — a fully…
“The federal money doesn’t guarantee Diablo Canyon will stay open longer. But it increases the likelihood of California continuing to rely on the plant, along the Central Coast in San Luis Obispo County — despite decades of anti-nuclear activism and public concerns about what would happen if an earthquake erupts along one of the seismic…
“Two decades ago, voters called for the site to be fully cleaned to the most rigorous standards. A stance recently reiterated by Shamann Walton, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. ‘I also wanted to make it clear, that the number one goal for the shipyard has to be and should be 100% complete…
“Three groups filed a petition in Ventura County Superior Court on Thursday to block a settlement signed this year by the state of California and Boeing that set up protocols for cleaning up soil and water in an area occupied by the now-abandoned Santa Susana Field Laboratory.” Read the full story here.
Dan Hirsch has published an op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner on the EPA’s recent disclosure that it would not uphold the full cleanup at the Hunters Point Shipyard that the official policy of San Francisco calls for.
“After years of bringing attention to the site’s environmental problems with little result, residents’ concerns may finally be taken seriously at City Hall. Notably, District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton proposed that San Francisco could refuse to take back land from the Navy if parcels are not fully remediated.” Read the whole story here.
Heal the Bay has fought alongside CBG for the cleanup of the SSFL, and had this to say about last month’s outrageous decision by the LA Water Board. https://healthebay.org/calling-for-accountability-at-the-santa-susana-field-lab/
On August 11, 2022, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board held a special hearing in which, despite hours of community testimony overwhelmingly opposing it, the Board approved the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between itself and Boeing. The MOU is the second part of the deal worked out behind closed doors over the last…
“Lawmakers have questioned why Newsom dropped the text of his legislation just days before the end of the Legislature’s two-year session on Wednesday, saying it provided virtually no time to carefully review it. Daniel Hirsch, retired director of the program on environmental and nuclear policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a longtime…
“Daniel Hirsch, President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, claimed that the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant was built near four different fault lines, including the Shoreline fault which lies less than half a mile away from the plant. Hirsch argued that the fault lines could cause earthquakes stronger than the plant can withstand. And…
“On Monday, Hirsch called the approval of the new memorandum ‘a tragedy.’ ‘When they voted on the MOU — which was horrible in its own way — it made effective the larger deal with Boeing to let them have vastly higher levels of contamination in place,’ he said. He added that the agreement, if not…
“Nearly 15 years ago the Boeing Company and the state agency that oversees cleanup of the radioactively and chemically polluted Santa Susana Field Lab signed an agreement that asked Boeing to clean up its portion of the site once known as Rocketdyne. Now, as Boeing and state officials this week praised their new plan to…
“The state on Monday announced an agreement with the Boeing Corporation to clean up a large part of one of California’s most contaminated sites–the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL)–located in the hills above the San Fernando and Simi Valleys. In a 2015 investigation called “LA’s Nuclear Secret,” the NBC4 I-Team exposed how radioactive and chemical…
“There’s no safe level of radiation,” Hirsch said. “The issue is how dangerous is acceptable. The whole game is that they are allowing extraordinarily high levels of radiation exposure.” Read the full article from the Santa Fe New Mexican here.
Joe Maizlish—war resister, gentle soul, and dear friend of Bridge the Gap—died March 16, 2022. While a graduate student in history at UCLA in 1968, to protest the Vietnam War, Joe gave up his draft deferment and publicly refused induction. He served 2 ½ years in various federal prisons, a substantial amount of the time in solitary confinement. In the decades since, he worked diligently against war and injustice. He helped found the Southern California Nonviolence Community. He advocated for a peaceful and just resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He worked for an end to the underlying and systemic causes of violence. In his person, he also embodied the values of gentleness, humility, and caring that he worked for in the world at large. The photo of Joe refusing induction [click photo for larger version] exemplifies who he was at heart: someone who did the right thing, at great personal cost, and who gently asked us all, what are we going to do to help transform a world filled with war?
On February 10, Dan Hirsch and Melissa Bumstead gave a presentation to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board on behalf of CBG, Parents Vs. SSFL, Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition. The Board is considering whether to approve a renewed – and vastly weakened – permit…
“The 1959 explosion of a sodium-cooled test reactor at the government’s secretive Santa Susana Field Laboratory outside Simi Valley remains the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, venting an immense amount of radioactivity into the air. The event created what former California EPA Director Jared Blumenfeld called “one of the most toxic sites in the…
