Talk:Santa Susana Field Laboratory/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Not merging

I'm not merging Santa Susana Field Laboratory entry with one that seems to be highly criticized and suffers from copyright problems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smvans7 (talk • contribs) 02:49, 19 January 2006

Disposing of barrels with shotguns

Among the various methods used to dispose of the sodium and radioactively filled barrels of waste was a particularly violent method of shooting full barrels with shotguns so that they would explode, and release their highly contaminated contents into the air.

Can we get a citation for this? I can't seem to find anything on the web correlating it and it just sounds rather apocryphal to me. First of all, why would shooting a barrel of waste cause it to "explode?" At first I thought it was vandalism, until I saw the edit where it came into the article introduced a lot of other legitimate looking facts. --Bri 21:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Though odd, it is plausible. Sodium would ignite when exposed to oxygen. Moreovet the lab engaged in other dubious disposal techniques, such as the "bucket test" . That "test" involved pouring flammable chemicals into a bucket and lighting it, ostensibly to see what would happen but really just to burn up waste products. -Will Beback 01:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Here are two articles by one journalist, one for the respectable weekly, L.A. Citybeat. [1][2] -Will Beback 05:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have citation but it absolutely happened. FBI raided the facility after the "accident" and Boeing subsequently paid the biggest criminal-environmental crime in CA history. I agree though, a citation would be nice. --smvans7 (author)

I have added a link to a news article which directly quotes a top DOE official in relating the procedure. I have also added a link to SB990 a bill on the floor of the california assembly which also includes a description of this procedure. --smvans7 8/29/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.61.73 (talk) 05:50, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Location

Could somebody include location info such as coordinates for google earth, or even adresses for mapquest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcollins93012 (talk • contribs) 20:08, 11 October 2006

Sure:

The address for the site is:

5800 Woolsey Canyon Road

Canoga Park, California 91304-1148

United States of America

Address Note: The address is not listed, however, if you point your browser to Woolsey Canyon & Valley Circle Blvd, you can follow Woolsey canyon up to the top of the mountain, and move left at the top of Woolsey. You will notice buildings, etc. Rocketdynewatch 05:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

34°13′51″N 118°41′47″W / 34.230822°N 118.696375°W / 34.230822; -118.696375

This seems to be off a bit. 199.200.243.253 (talk) 21:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirected Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination

Ownership

The article says the facility is owned by Boeing. This would have been true when Rocketdyne was owned by Boeing. Now that Rocketdyne is owned by Pratt&Whitney, has the ownership of SSFL changed as well? Sdsds 09:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL) is currently owned by Boeing. When the Rocketdyne division was sold to Pratt & Whitney, Pratt & Whitney refused to take the Santa Susana Field Lab as part of the acquisition due to the contamination issues with the site and the surrounding community. If you drive up to the site, you will notice at the corner of Woolsey Canyon Road & Valley Circle Drive (The major intersection for the site), you will notice a Boeing Integrated Defense Systems sign that says the address in addition to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory title. Rocketdynewatch 09:31, 5 March 2007 (PST)

Changes to SRE-related content

I have removed the statement identifying the Sodium Reactor Experiment as America's first meltdown. America's first nuclear meltdown occurred at the EBR-1 reactor on 29 November 1955.

Without IAEA or NRC recognition of the term "meltdown", we need to be careful not to lump together phenomena which are so substantively and magnitudinally disparate that the meaning of the term loses any useful meaning. I'm considering the term's importance as a part of widely used decision-making heuristics, and its established, if fragile, importance as such. Not only does a plurality of the public, academia and lawmakers believe that the Three Mile Island incident was the only incident in the US, but they also have no idea that among hundreds of others, it was not nearly the worst. Wikipedia pages are all over the map on the facts (EBR-1 is not even listed in the article exhaustively listing all nuclear incidents) The hiccup of EBR-1 scarcely qualifies as a meltdown the same way the SSFL reactor incident does. As a fuel-breeding proof-of-concept not meant to produce power, it was not even a power plant. This is only important to note because it puts EBR-1 in the same category as innumerable incidents during earlier fuel experimentation at places like Los Alamos Here is a list of "criticality accidents" some of which include fatalities dating back to the 1940s. The SSFL reactor powered a city, and when it failed, it had lasting and measurable epidemiological implications. I will make the edit, but I look forward to discussing this further. We may want to collaborate on more comprehensively delineating relevant incidents from severe ones, taking into account, say, nuclear release, or officially recognized terms and metrics. Angelobellomo (talk) 09:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I have modified the text to add a reference to the Sodium Reactor Experiment mainpage, added references and improve NPOV.

I have moved the Nuclear Reactors Power Plants box to the [Sodium Reactor Experiment] main page. BluegillTriplePrime (talk) 00:07, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I have begun major edits to this section. Every fact relating to the meltdown and contamination cited sources which violate wp verifiability standards. Specifically those concerning reliable sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOURCES#Reliable_sources(Angelobellomo (talk) 19:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC))

For the life of me I can't get an answer as to what happened to the Sodium coolant from the time of the meltdown. A 1977 knbc news report(available at committee bridge the gap) features experts stating the obvious (that the melting fuel flowed into the coolant, and that the sodium was highly radioactive.) The rockwell international/AEC videos mention the radioactive sodium from the primary sodium system, and how it was so important to have a secondary sodium system that was not radioactive to safely interface with the power company's steam plant.

I looked though the archival videos released by aec (available at enviroreporter.com in the video section).

I also read the official rockwell decommissioning report.<ref>{{cite web | last = Rockwell International Corporation, Energy Systems Group | title = Sodium Reactor Experiment Decommissioning Final Report | date = | url = http://etec.energy.gov/History/Major-Operations/SREDocs/ESG-DOE-13403_SREDecomReport_(4143).pdf | id = ESG-DOE-13403 }}</ref>. here is a summary of all mentions of primary sodium:

2.1.7.4 sodium melt station and primary fill tank

sodium melt station was used for transferring sodium from 55gal drums to the primary or secondary fill tanks.

The sodium melt station and the secondary fill tank were located in the sodium service building.

Since the primary sodium was radioactive, the primary fill tank was located in a vault constructed of dense concrete, which served as a :biological shield. The primary tank had a capacity of 8850 -gallons.

2.2.3 sodium systems

5500 lb of primary sodium was in the primary fill tank at ambient temperature.

4.4.2 Primary sodium disposal

At the start of dismantlement, approx 7400 gal of sodium was stored in the primary fill tank. This sodium was slightly radioactive. It was heated and drained into drums and sent to Hanford.

9.3 DISPOSAL OF CONTAMINATED SODIUM

during deactivation 54,950 lb of slightly radioactive sodium (4mR/h at the surface of each 55gal drum) had been drained into the storage tank from the reactor and primary piping system. This sodium was later put into drums for shipment to hanford washington for possible use in other programs.

My hunch and that of enviroreporter is that the sodium from the time of the meltdown was exploded. It that is the case, the radioactive particles could easily have traveled as far as the Santa Ana Winds would take them.(Angelobellomo (talk) 17:41, 17 February 2011 (UTC))

POV Check

There's an article in today's Los Angeles Times marking the 50th anniversary of the 1959 meltdown. Very informative article, but I'm concerned that some parts (in particular, the "Site Contamination" section) stray from Wikipedia's NPOV guidelines. At the very least, the style needs some adjustment -- I don't think inline "See [citation]" is the usual style, and editorial comments in the reference are clearly not NPOV.

On December 11, 2002, a top Department of Energy (DOE) official, Mike Lopez, described typical clean-up procedures executed by Field Lab employees in the past. Workers would dispose of barrels filled with highly toxic waste by shooting the barrels with rifles so that they would explode and release their contents into the air. It is unclear when this process ended, but for certain did end prior to the 1990s. (See: "Rocketdyne, it's the pits," Ventura County Reporter, December 12, 2002; also see SB990, a bill before the California legislature relating this almost unbelievable procedure.)

I don't have a dog in this fight; I just happened to stop by. I'll leave it to the California and/or Nuclear experts to hash this one out. --Robertb-dc (talk) 19:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The article does need some cleanup, especially regarding citation style and editorial comments. Will Beback talk 21:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks OK to me. It neither fawns on management, or foams at the mouth and tries to bite them. It documents attempts at mitigation, describes causes and measured effects, and it's referenced. Ray Van De Walker 22:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

It is important to note that the press releases and documents released by the parties involved in the site contamination do not meet Wikipedia's reliable sources guidelines. Citing potentially liable parties is not an appropriate means of balancing the article.(Angelobellomo (talk) 19:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC))

Size of SSFL

When researching the SSFL, I find two figures representing the total size of the site. The 2009 Historical Resources Survey of the SSFL NASA facilities claims the site measures 2,662 acres while other information (i.e., DTSC website) provides an area of 2,849 acres. I've included the 2,668 figure since it comes from the most recent published source and the the owner may have recently divested some of the property. Those with better information should update the figure provided in the article as appropriate.BluegillTriplePrime (talk) 16:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

UFO Sightings???

I don't see the reason why UFO sightings at SSFL need to be part of the header of the article. Is that an attempt to invite ridicule ... as mention of UFO's so often has been used ... or to get some readers to abandon the article at that point? Because there are many valuable lessons to be learned from SSFL's history. I strongly suggest that IF that material is really encyclopedic, it should be floated to the bottom. I'll leave that up to the editors who think that up to 1800 cancer deaths is no laughing matter. Twang (talk) 06:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

This page is lacking citations. Are these stats (particularly population size, clean up dates, and court case details) still accurate? If so, citations are needed and status of clean up should be updated. Additionally, some links provided do not work. Specifically the Ventura County Star archived articles do no work. Hotcheetoprincess (talk) 19:31, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

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Bell Canyon?

Is the whole entire ritzy gated community of Bell Canyon contaminated then? What about Canoga Park? How come there hasn't been any reports of this on the news? Shouldn't there be people dying in droves of cancer making news, celebrities in particular? The Bell Canyon dwellers live in insanely huge mansions. It's the lap of luxury there. Movie producers and what not. How come they haven't shelled out the bucks to clean it up? Maybe some public awareness campaign is in order then? I never heard about it until tonight when I landed on a page claiming that Michael Landon died of cancer due to filming one of his shows in Simi Valley near this site. (I thought LHOTP filmed in Newhall?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.178.137.210 (talk) 08:18, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

It is plausible that Bell Canyon was effected, considering it is on the edge of the 2 mile radius that was mentioned as the fallout area, although the southeast side of the Simi Valley and Sage Ranch park are located more within the vicinity than is Bell Canyon. Persistent Corvid (talk) 23:37, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

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