Rainwater
The Santa Susana Field Lab’s rainwater reaches the Los Angeles River from behind Canoga Park High School
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We’re suing Boeing to protect our water
In 2023, residents and NGOs petitioned the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board for a stricter rainwater runoff permit for the Santa Susana Field Lab. Remarkably, they were listened to. Boeing was ordered to use newer technology to detect PCBs, to refrain from removing any contaminations from the list of regulated chemicals, and to do a study to guarantee that Boeing’s practice of routing contamianted rainwater into an unlined pond wasn’t polluting the groundwater.
Boeing is currently suing the Water Board, saying the new limits are too restrictive. A group of environmental NGOS, including Parents Against SSFL, the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation, PEER, and PSR-LA decided to fight back. The lawsuit is currently being reviewed.
WATER BOARD FINES: $1,000,000
2021: Quarter 4: Twelve violations of permit limits and exceedances of permit benchmarks across six different outfalls. Measured contaminant levels were as much as twenty-four times higher than the permit level.
2019 (after the Woolsey Fire): Boeing normally would have to pay the state as much as $154,250 in fines for 57 violations. However, a state official slashed the fine to $28,000 at Boeing's request, after the company cited an exemption for natural disasters that could not be prevented.
The Boeing Company report the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.
2010: The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and Boeing reached an agreement that requires the company to pay $500,000 for chronic violations of the stormwater permit that governs the discharge of surface water from the field lab, a former rocket engine testing and nuclear research facility in the hills two miles south of Simi. Simi Valley Acorn: Boeing fined by water board
2009: County water authorities have decided not to fine Boeing Co. for polluted stormwater runoff at its contaminated field lab near Simi Valley. Ventura County Star
2007: Boeing Co. has paid more than $471,000 for allowing excessive levels of lead, mercury and other toxins to flow from the nuclear and rocket-engine test site into surrounding canyons as well as the Arroyo Simi and Bell Creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River. LA Times: Boeing pays fine for water quality violations
2006: Water Board issued 0 notices of violation for strontium-90 exceedances of Boeing’s pollution permit limits. Strontium-90 was reported at 8.44 pCi/L on October 18, 2005, sample from Outfall 003. Presentation to SSFL InterAgency Work Group Community Meeting
2004-2006: The state directed the Los Angeles board to fine Boeing $471,190 for 79 water-quality violations over 15 months, for higher-than-allowed levels of chromium, dioxin, lead, mercury, radioactive strontium 90 and other contaminants. The proposed fine covers 79 violations from October 2004 through January 2006. Los Angeles Daily News
2002: In a separate case, Boeing paid the L.A. regional water board $39,000 in fines for surface water pollution in 2002. Los Angeles Daily News
Wooley Fire’s Toxic Rain Runoff
The Woolsey Fire began at the Santa Susana Field Lab and burned through approximately 80% of the site. This loosed the soil and turned contaminated plants into ash. Heavy rains began months later and carried the contamination from the site into the Los Angeles River and the Callegus Creek Watershed in unprecedented amounts.
Boeing should have been fined over $150K for the 57 violations of rainwater contamination above legal limits. However, at Boeing's request, the fines were reduced to a minimum of $28,000. It was later discovered that Boeing had a ten-year deal with the Water Board to auto-reduce any fines that occurred at the Santa Susana Field Lab. That same year Boeing reported a profit of nearly $20 billion dollars.