Talk:Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination/archive

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. 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.

Published by Author (Madeline Felkins) Permission under the GNU Free Documentation License


Rocketdyne/Boeing Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination and Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination (Undeletion): Thank you Eloquence and Angela for your kind help. I am still rewriting the page and have read the facts as presented in the other links to Rocketdyne, Saturn V, Jupiter-C IRBM, Peacekeeper missiles and rocket testing, etcetera, and am very aware that those pages often editorialize, for example, ..."there were no accidents with the Saturn project...", "...toxic mercury...", in addition to other such remarks within those Wikipedia pages as well as multiple external links to Boeing and other agencies and corporations. (I have read POV within Wikipedia articles Vincent Chin, Three Mile Island, and *FBI, which *discusses potential for blackmail of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by this federal bureau, as well as many other POV Wikipedia documents). Moreover, there is absolutely no mention of the fact that the Rocketdyne/Boeing Santa Susana Field Laboratory is involved in a major cleanup project with the U.S. Government and State of California Department of Energy (DOE)/Department of Defense (DOD)/Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC)/Agency for Toxic Substance Disease Registry (ATSDR) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among other government agencies, which costs millions of dollars. The University of California, Los Angeles, published its Rocketdyne Worker Epidemiological/Cancer Study in 1997 and now is involved in the Rocketdyne Contamination/Community Resident Health Study including exposure pathways, due to nuclear meltdown(s) at the Rocketdyne/SSFL site beginning in 1959, in addition to contamination and toxins caused by decades of rocket engine testing accidents, spills, and releases at the open field lab beginning in 1948 until the SSFL activities were shut down by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1995, as two nuclear engineers were killed, (Otto Heiney and Larry Pugh), and an engineering technician was injured while they were illegally burning spent fuel at the open field lab during July, 1994. Contaminants include but are not limited to cesium-137, strontium-90, perchlorate, hydrazine, and trichloroethylene. Perchlorate is also a byproduct of spent nuclear fuel and its contamination has been discovered in many monitoring wells in Simi and discovered in the valley's soil and groundwater as well. Rockwell was fined six million dollars which was a historical amount at that time, testing ceased at the site, and North American Rockwell sold it to Boeing during December, 1996. Rocketdyne officials pleaded guilty to criminal handling, storage, and disposal of nuclear, radioactive, hazardous, and toxic wastes. These facts are Atomics International, North American Aviation, North American Rockwell, Boeing, Rocketdyne, Cold War, Space Program, Southern California, energy worker, labor, criminal, and medical history; the omission of which reflects the deliberate publishing of just a small part of aerospace/jet/rocket industry, etcetera. I presented my author copyright and permission to publish strictly due to the fact that I didn't want to be deleted for copyright violations and have included release under GNU Free Documentation License. Sincerely, Madelinefelkins 67.219.146.49 01:27, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Contents

Discussion from VfD

  • Rocketdyne. Not only does the article claim to be copyrighted, but it's hardly NPOV. RickK 03:30, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Copyright violations should go on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/copyvio. (Also, articles that aren't NPOV should go on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention). -- Cyan 04:58, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
      • Look, I was on the verge of just deleting the thing, but thought better of it and listed it here. Have you read the article? You might find why I put it here. There is no point to to the Wikipedia:Pages needing attention page, as nothing gets resolved there. RickK 05:07, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
        • (off-topic) I've resolved a few pages needing attention myself, and seen others resolve them. The page does have problems, though. Martin 19:26, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Now replaced this strange article with a hopefully much better article about the company. andy 19:55, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination - not again said the pot of petunias... andy 19:57, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • Rocketdyne/Boeing Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination - third time this stuff was posted. Now made that one a redirect, but should go together with the other one. Also notice that the poster things that every article vaguely related with the company Rocketdyne (e.g. Saturn V or Turbopump) needs to link to that article, and of course in boldface. andy 21:30, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • This nonetheless has some copyright problems. It claims it is authorized for "non-commercial use", which isn't strong enough for us: Wikipedia is licensed under the GFDL, which permits commercial use of its articles. --Delirium 06:54, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)
    • And additional to the copyright problems it is very POV - such an article fits on greenpeace.com, but not in a encyclopedia. It needs serious reworking to make it fit here - I only removed the extremely ugly font sizes. andy 09:17, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Make life easy and delete it. ThereIsNoSteve 19:27, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
  • I think if the copyright isn't an issue, this article should be left for longer before a deletion decision is made as it still being actively worked on and may have potential to develop into something worthwhile. Angela 20:48, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you Eloquence and Angela for your kind help. I am still rewriting the page and have read the facts as presented in the other links to Rocketdyne, Saturn V, Jupiter-C IRBM, Peacekeeper missiles and rocket testing, etcetera, and am very aware that those pages often editorialize, for example, ..."there were no accidents with the Saturn project...", "...toxic mercury...", in addition to other such remarks within those Wikipedia pages as well as multiple external links to Boeing and other agencies and corporations. (I have read POV within Wikipedia articles Vincent Chin, Three Mile Island, and *FBI, which *discusses potential for blackmail of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by this federal bureau, as well as many other POV Wikipedia documents). Moreover, there is absolutely no mention of the fact that the Rocketdyne/Boeing Santa Susana Field Laboratory is involved in a major cleanup project with the U.S. Government and State of California Department of Energy (DOE)/Department of Defense (DOD)/Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC)/Agency for Toxic Substance Disease Registry (ATSDR) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among other government agencies, which costs millions of dollars. The University of California, Los Angeles, published its Rocketdyne Worker Epidemiological/Cancer Study in 1997 and now is involved in the Rocketdyne Contamination/Community Resident Health Study including exposure pathways, due to nuclear meltdown(s) at the Rocketdyne/SSFL site beginning in 1959, in addition to contamination and toxins caused by decades of rocket engine testing accidents, spills, and releases at the open field lab beginning in 1948 until the SSFL activities were shut down by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1995, as two nuclear engineers were killed, (Otto Heiney and Larry Pugh), and an engineering technician was injured while they were illegally burning spent fuel at the open field lab during July, 1994. Contaminants include but are not limited to cesium-137, strontium-90, perchlorate, hydrazine and trichloroethylene. Perchlorate is also a byproduct of spent nuclear fuel and its contamination has been discovered in many monitoring wells in Simi and discovered in the valley's soil and groundwater as well. Rockwell was fined six million dollars which was a historical amount at that time, testing ceased at the site, and North American Rockwell sold it to Boeing during December, 1996. Rocketdyne officials pleaded guilty to criminal handling, storage, and disposal of nuclear, radioactive, hazardous, and toxic wastes. These facts are Atomics International, North American Aviation, North American Rockwell, Boeing, Rocketdyne, Cold War, Space Program, Southern California, energy worker, labor, criminal, and medical history; the omission of which reflects the deliberate publishing of just a small part of aerospace/jet/rocket industry, etcetera. I presented my author copyright and permission to publish strictly due to the fact that I didn't want to be deleted for copyright violations and have included release under GNU Free Documentation License. Sincerely, Madelinefelkins 67.219.146.49 01:27, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Once again, I need to reiterate: putting something on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention is useless. Nothing ever gets changed after being put there. This article is hopelessly NPOV, and really needs to be deleted. The title itself is POV. RickK 03:10, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

So anything not fixed within the seven days VfD time limit can be deleted on the grounds of NPOV, even though that might be fixable given a longer time span? Is there anything that could be saved from this article? Angela 03:30, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The tiny amount of research I've done on this topic shows that most of the claims are greatly exaggerated and some might be outright false. The whole article is essentially an editorial that makes frequent use of words like "carcinogens" and "contamination". The author doesn't really seem to understand some of the terms she is using. If you'd like to try and fix this page, go right ahead there is plenty of work to be done if you'd like to be the one to do it. ThereIsNoSteve 03:42, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
No, wasn't volunteering. Anyway, as Madeline has not refuted the fact it is a copyvio, it should probably be deleted on those grounds. Angela 03:48, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)
She's now said to me on my talk page that it is GFDL. Perhaps if no-one's prepared to fix it, it should still be deleted? Angela 23:25, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think it can be kept. There's an NPOV dispute over it, so readers will be aware of its shortcomings. It's more likely to be fixed once the threat of deletion is removed: people dislike spending time on an article if it's going to be deleted in a few days anyway. Martin 23:43, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree. I have removed the VfD notice for now and added it to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. Angela 23:57, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"The amount of radioactivity in the area due to nuclear and rocket/missile fuels remains unknown as Rocketdyne remained unmonitored for over fifty years. Record keeping of many of the rocket/missile testing and use of carcinogenic fuels do not exist. Tests were conducted for the United States ARMY and U.S. AIR FORCE by Rocketdyne for such missiles as Redstone, Minuteman, and Peacekeeper. These missiles are nuclear missiles and are not part of the space program. They are in fact, thermo-nuclear weapons which are integral to Missilier activities.

Minuteman missiles contain three cylinders, and each cylinder contains one thermo-nuclear warhead, totalling three thermo-nuclear warheads for each Minuteman. The Peacekeeper missile is also known as The One Hundred City Bomb: Peacekeepers contain ten cylinders, each of which contains ten thermo-nuclear warheads totalling one hundred thermo-nuclear weapons, thus the named identity of One Hundred City Bomb."

The above quotes are either misinformed or irresponsible. First, nuclear warheads are not associated with engine static firing (the kind of testing accomplished at Rocketdyne, in which the engines are placed in a test stand and fired.) No delivery platform or guidance section are included, and multi-stage rocket engines are tested separately. Testing of the quidance package and warhead delivery system are carried out at military installations, such as Vandenburg AFB. The missiles are loaded up with inert warheads and targeted at test ranges such as those in the South Pacific (or, in the case of the Former Soviet Union, Kamchatka). Second, I have heard of no missile system that contains 100 thermonuclear devices. Thermonuclear devices are heavy, complicated and require much in the way of support mechanisms. The warhead case has to be made of sufficient amounts material that is capable of insulating its contents form the tremendous heat of reentry. Warheads are not small. The only references to the Peacekeeper as the "One Hundred City Bomb" that I could find occur in Ms. Felkins' own writings.

Everything i have read states that the MX missile carries 10 reentry vehicles each of which contains one warhead. While this is certainly not a small weapon (3MT total) it is not anywhere near 100. Isn't killing 10 cities horrible enough? Do we have to exagerate upawards to 100?
The Redstone was also very much part of the early U.S. space program. A Redstone derivitive launched the first US satellite, and a Redstone launched the first American into space (not counting the X-15 pilots...). And the space shuttle solid rocket boosters are quite related to early solid fueled nuclear missiles. Audin 02:08, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Nobody calls it the 100 City Bomb, because it's not. Also, Redstone, Minuteman, and Peacekeeper rocket buses are used in various types of space (i.e. non-weapons) activity, so having an emphatic denial that this is ever done is plainly false. This article was clearly written by someone who has very little grasp of the reality of nuclear weapons and I'd imagine probably very little grasp about this particular historical incident. Maybe I'll look into this if I get the time... ---Fastfission 01:10, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bucket tests

Nothing in here about the illegal "bucket tests" that led to the deaths of two scientists? [1] That was big news when it happened. Does anyone know more than me about the topic? -Willmcw 07:49, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

My Two Cents

Regarding the concern that this may be factually wrong, the only thing I have a question about WRT this article is the implication that nuclear warheads were used on this site. As mentioned in this talk section, this was a rocket engine test site. There's no logical reason to have real nuclear warheads on site. As far as I recall, the rocket engines were tested in place, and without the rest of the rocket, so while there was a nuclear reactor meltdown in the 50's, there was never any reason to have nuclear weapons on this site.

As far as the neutrality goes, this is about as neutral as we're going to get, unless we want to include a press release from Boeing/Rocketdyne. I grew up in this area. A friend of mine died of bone cancer when we were in high school. My brother and I used to play in the drainage ditches when we were kids, now we're both have pain and chronic fatigue from an undiagnosed cause. I've known several people who died at a young age (younger than 30) from various types of cancer. Friends of mine claim to personally know hundreds of individuals who have died at a fairly young age from cancer between 1990 and 2005. If you look at the statistics for cancer and thyroid disease in this area, you'll find both are significantly higher than the general population. I no longer live in that area, but I'm still waiting to get better (15 years later).

I do have a suggestion abou the wording in the article, though. Could we use some word other that "toxins" to describe perchlorates, TCE, and radionuclides. The term "toxins" reminds me of those quacks on TV that try to pawn off useless "detox" regimens, which include colonic cleansing, etc. If we can't find a more effective term for whatever toxin we're referring to, how about "toxic substances" or "toxic chemicals". Maybe it's just me, but I've mentally linked the word "toxins" to medical quacks who can't legally specific chamicals, since they don't exist.

Also, a question: Are either of these parts of Rocketdyne? I remember seeing the tanks up on the mountain, but that's about it. Images are from terraserver.microsoft.com

ZZYZX 08:48, August 30, 2005 (UTC)


RIGHT ON, MADELINE FELKINS!

Having grown up in Santa Paula beginning in the late 1950s through 1972, it was commonly known that the sounds of rocket engines in the distance (about 22 air miles) were from Rocketdyne's Santa Susana facility. As an adult, I now live around 7 or 8 miles (air distance) from it. If a thoughtful citizen reflects for a moment on all the research that has gone into this article, one would instantly conclude there have been serious and irreparable problems created at Rocketdyne's field lab. In the interest of truth, science and HEALTH, it would be natural that many questions would be raised by readers which might cast doubt on some facts in the article. Nonetheless, the issue that people's lives were ruined should always be remembered and the focus of any further comments. Wikipedia's chief purpose is as a reasonable source for the common man, not as a forum for the revelation, dispute and discussion of facts which are designed primarily for scientific journals. This article should stand, be revised with appropriate facts and the REAL issue would then be what our government and military contractors got away with, and how to stop it the next time it happens.

Comment from Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Environment

- This article's been languishing in TotallyDisputed hell for almost a year, and no one's made substantial changes to the content since it began as a GFDL article from elsewhere. Needs fact checking and a good critical eye from someone with a good amount of knowledge about the subject. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c ] 10:05, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

moved as part of Wikipedia:Cleanup process/Cleanup sorting proposal; {{expert}} added Alba 00:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)