2 Groups Act to Block Renewal of Rockwell’s Nuclear License

Two anti-nuclear groups announced Monday that they have petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject Rockwell International’s bid to renew its operating license for a nuclear fuel recycling facility at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

The Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Committee to Bridge the Gap claim Rockwell is unfit to handle radioactive materials and have asked the NRC to hold public hearings before ruling on the license renewal. Such hearings are discretionary under NRC regulations.

The firm’s license, which expired June 30, has been extended indefinitely while the NRC assesses the environmental impact of the “Hot Lab” facility west of Chatsworth, NRC spokesman Greg Cook said.

Rockwell officials said no nuclear work is being done at the lab, but that the firm’s Rocketdyne division is seeking future contracts. From the early 1960s until 1986, the Hot Lab was used to remove plutonium and other materials from nuclear fuel rods and package them for future use.

The anti-nuclear organizations claimed in a seven-page memo to the NRC that Rockwell should not be allowed to handle radioactive materials because of alleged hazardous-waste violations at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant near Denver, which Rockwell manages for the U.S. Department of Energy. The weapons plant is the subject of a criminal inquiry by the FBI and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Neglect Charged

The memo also states that Rockwell should not be granted a 10-year license to operate the Hot Lab because of its record of “environmental neglect” at Santa Susana. A DOE report released in May disclosed low-level chemical and radioactive contamination at Santa Susana, where the company operated about 16 nuclear reactors between 1947 and 1986.

Rocketdyne spokesman Pat Coulter said Monday there are no significant environmental problems at the Santa Susana site and called the charges of neglect “completely inaccurate and unfounded.” He said Rocky Flats and Santa Susana are managed by different divisions of Rockwell and there is no connection between them.

NRC spokesman Frank Ingram said an administrative law judge appointed by the agency will consider the request for a hearing after completing review of an environmental impact report on the Hot Lab in several months. He said there is no deadline for the agency to act on the request.

But Dr. Richard Saxon, an orthopedic surgeon in Encino and a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, said “there are lots of concerned people out there, and no matter how long it takes, the clamor from the community to stop Rockwell’s nuclear activities won’t die down.”

The group has a membership of about 35,000 doctors, dentists and other health professionals nationwide, about 2,300 of them in Los Angeles. Committee to Bridge the Gap is a Los Angeles-based group.