Boeing’s Demolition of a California Nuclear Testing Facility Has Nearby Families Worried About Cancer
The demolition crews are nearly done, but the worry is just starting for families living downwind of Santa Susana. Boeing has torn down five buildings at the former Rocketdyne site, where a 1959 reactor meltdown scattered radiation across the area. Those structures sat contaminated for decades, and knocking them down raises an obvious question: what gets stirred into the air while the work happens, and where does all that material go?
I think the concern here is entirely legitimate. This site has a long history of cleanup promises that kept slipping, and the community has been told for years that the land would be restored to a safe standard. Instead, residents are watching demolition proceed without, as far as the reporting shows, clear public reassurance about air monitoring or independent health follow-up.
What I'd want to know next is what the monitoring data actually shows and whether families will get testing that doesn't depend on Boeing's own contractors. Cancer clusters are hard to prove, but that doesn't make the fear unfounded. The burden should be on the company to demonstrate that this demolition didn't make an already dangerous situation worse.