Original subtitles

To let a former Boeing consultant

on your board have influence over these matters

is of huge concern to me.

And to let Boeing continue to pollute, and get away with

failing to adhere to the Clean-up Agreement is wrong.

To fail to protect our water source is wrong.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Melissa Bumstead.

I've live... It's okay. Thank you.

I live in West Hills.

I'm the mom who started the change.org petition

that now has over 600,000 signatures,

for the full cleanup of the Santa Susanna Field Lab.

You're going to hear a lot today.

We've got a lot of facts. We know the facts.

We're all intelligent people, here.

But I think what is lacking is courage to do the right thing.

And so, I wanted to bring you my daughter's beads of courage.

My daughter is a two-time cancer survivor at 9 years old.

Can you do it? Achoo!

- Hachoo. - Achoo.

Would you like to go to Disneyland today?

- Yeah! - Okay.

Let's go to Disneyland.

Oh, yeah!

Are you gonna come, too?

I'm coming, too.

Oh, yeah!

She earned all these beads

through her cancer treatment program.

Each bead represents something different.

For example, red represents

when she had a blood transfusion,

black when she got poked with a needle,

yellow for inpatient stays, white for chemotherapy.

This is what she earned the first month.

I'd like to share with you what she has earned

over the last two times fighting cancer.

A few of the photos I just want to fly through real quick.

Just some of the children that we've met who are local.

I went to camp with this little boy last weekend.

He's about to lose his second eye.

This little boy has a T-cell leukemia.

He's doing alright. He's in remission.

We've had several who have passed away.

We need you to step in, and protect us,

and protect our children.

Do the right thing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi.

Bumstead: My daughter, Grace Ellen, had just turned 4 years old

when we found bruises all over her body.

Took her to the pediatrician, and quickly found out

that she had an incredibly rare and aggressive form

of childhood leukemia.

She had a 20% survival rate.

She really endured a lot of suffering that first year.

Princess flying experiment, take two.

And then, she had a year and a half

of just wonderful, cancer-free childhood.

And then, Gracie's cancer relapsed,

and it came back.

It was April 2013, and my daughter, Hazel, was 2.

And I was noticing that she was not quite herself.

And I kept calling the doctors,

but everybody was going, "Probably just the flu."

And I turned to my husband, and I said, "My mommy instincts"

are telling me that something's really wrong."

I said, "I don't know why, but I think she has cancer."

They performed some bloodwork tests,

and then, an ultrasound.

After several days of tests, we knew it was neuroblastoma.

Alright, Hazel, you ready to play Simon Says?

- Yeah! - Okay.

Simon says touch your nose.

Simon says touch your head.

Simon says touch your mouth.

Simon says touch your ears.

Simon says blow a kiss.

Simon says says "I love you." - I love you.

Simon says sing "Twinkle Twinkle."

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Hazel was in remission for two and a half years.

I beat cancer!

Yay!

In 2016, she relapsed.

Good job.

The first time Grace had cancer,

we lived over 100 days that first year

at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.

How cool is that?

Yeah.

And as we were meeting families,

we'd just casually ask you, "Oh, where are you from?"

That's exactly what happened with the Bumstead family.

They were at the hospital the same time that we were,

and then, Grace, her daughter, and Hazel,

like, immediately became friends.

They're so similar in so many ways.

And so, it just felt great to have that connection.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday dear Gracie.

And we found out that we lived

within 20 minutes of each other.

And I kept meeting other families,

and they'd say, "Oh, how about that?"

We just let you, know around, the corner, two blocks over,

"as the bird flies, 3 miles, 5 miles."

And then, several other moms and dads in Simi Valley,

in West Hills, in Thousand Oaks.

And we were really, at the time, just thankful for it.

But I think, as time went on, we were going, "Wait a second."

Like "How is it that so many of us who live nearby?"

We're going to Children's Hospital of Los Angeles,

a world-renowned hospital.

People are coming from all over the world

to come there for treatment,

and yet, we're meeting people that live on our street.

I just kept pushing back against my own mental red flags.

And so, I met a family that said,

"Oh, we live on your street."

And granted, we live on a long boulevard.

It's 3 miles.

But they lived on our street.

And she said, "And my neighbor had the same exact brain cancer"

that my son had."

And there were two of them.

Neighbors, plus my daughter, that's three on the same street.

So, I panicked, and I set up a Facebook group

for all the local cancer parents.

And we started mapping ourselves out by Google Maps.

And for a long time, we couldn't find the connection.

We couldn't see what was going on.

But we could tell that there were too many of us.

And it was about a year after that

that someone mentioned, for the first time,

the Santa Susanna Field Lab.

I had never heard of it.

We'd already lived here for seven years.

We all had to start wrestling with the fact that

maybe our children's cancers could have been avoided.

Many other children were in danger.

Maybe our government hadn't protected us

the way that they should have.

And maybe our whole community had been hiding

this giant secret.

Awareness breeds compassion,

and compassion leads to right action.

That is what we're missing.

I'm Daniel Hirsch.

I'm president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap,

and I recently retired as the director

of the Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy

at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

My name is Denise Duffield.

I'm the associate director

for Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles.

In the mid to late 1940s, the U.S. government

was trying to find a location in Southern California

to do nuclear reactor development testing,

and also rocket testing.

The field lab was originally selected as a location

to be away from populated areas,

because they knew they were going to be doing research

that could be potentially dangerous.

They did a marvelous study

to determine what would be the least dangerous place

to put a reactor testing facility.

And the Santa Susanna facility ranked very poorly.

They were concerned that any radioactivity

that was released could readily get to populated areas nearby.

They chose to site in Santa Susanna anyway.

Santa Susanna ranked fifth or sixth

because of the meteorological conditions.

But it was selected anyway,

because of the driving time to UCLA.

At the time that the Santa Susanna facility

was established, there was relatively low

population density around it.

This is a quiet place.

The atom at work for peace is quiet.

So, over the years, they built 10 nuclear reactors

and plutonium fuel fabrication facility,

which took plutonium...

The most dangerous material on Earth...

And made nuclear fuel out of it.

And a hot lab, in which they shift in

irradiated nuclear fuel to be cut apart.

None of those reactors, by the way,

had a containment structure.

Those domes that you associate with the power plants,

they were just regular rooms.

The most well-known of those is a reactor

what's called the "Sodium Reactor Experiment."

SRE... The Sodium Reactor Experiment...

Was radically different from other reactor concepts.

Sustained atomic fission

has been obtained in this nuclear reactor,

created and built for industrial applications,

medical research, and scientific exploration.

On the first full power run of the reactor steam plant,

all systems operated smoothly,

and full power was obtained with ease.

For the first time in the United States,

an entire community was illuminated

by electricity generated by an atomic reactor.

When we lived here before we learned the news,

it was just utopia.

We had a rural atmosphere close to the city.

We had children who loved playing in the creeks.

And I thought we'd found a dream place.

You know, it was the '50's and the '60's.

It was magical.

In those days, we'd go out the door,

Mom would say, "Come back," you know, "before dinner."

And it was totally safe.

Nobody locked their doors.

We just played outdoors all day, all the time.

This is how American families are living in their new homes.

The Valley was the ideal place to go.

It was agricultural, at that time.

It was rural.

And it would have been, really,

the most idyllic place to raise a child,

before the story that's unfolding now.

I think I was 19 years old when I came to California.

I started working at Atomics International in Santa Susanna

in 1963.

I felt a sense of pride to be there, and be involved.

And every worker felt a sense of pride.

I didn't know anything about what they were doing

where I worked, except it was secret.

The employees of Santa Susanna Field Laboratory

and Canoga and DeSoto facility changed the face of humanity.

My father was employed by Rocketdyne

between 1962 and 1969.

He was the senior propulsion test inspector

on the Saturn V rocket engine program.

I was never concerned about what my dad did

for a living as a young child.

He didn't really elaborate on what his job duties were

at the worksite.

They were sworn to secrecy.

We didn't know what we had really been dealing with

all these years, what was really going on up there.

And it just changed, because then, we didn't know if we came,

and brought our children

to a place that could be harmful to them,

because how would we know?

My girls loved climbing in creeks,

and getting frogs.

And it was scary. It was scary.

And so, as time went on,

it was even worse than we could even imagine.

My name is John Face.

I was there at the time of the worst nuclear accident

in the history of the United States.

I was 19 when I was hired there in 1959.

I didn't even know what a reactor was

when I first went to work there.

The fella who was sitting at the controls

certainly looked young to me.

Are these young men in your organization?

Yes. All these operators are fairly young fellows,

but all they need is a high-school education

with some major in science.

It was the Cold War time at that time,

and they was trying to help the United States

outdo the Russians.

On the one side, the forces of freedom,

on the other, the forces of Communism.

It was an honor to work there.

I was working with the very best scientists

in the nuclear business.

In fact, the person that had overseen the SRE reactor,

for Atomics International was Dr. Marvin J. Fox.

He's the one that helped invent the atomic bomb

that was dropped on Hiroshima, there.

On July 13th...

it was probably about eleven o'clock

was then I got there on that particular graveyard shift.

Went in the building.

I pulled up to the control room.

Looking through the door,

and I seen my crew was already there.

Then, I looked even closer, and I seen Dr. Marvin J. Fox.

And he had two others with him

that I wasn't sure quite who they were.

And I said, "Man, there's something

that's just not right."

So, I got brave, and opened the door, real quiet.

And as I stood there,

I heard the words coming out of Dr Fox's mouth.

I heard my supervisor ask,

"Can we tell our families what happened today?"

The three looked at each other for a minute.

Dr. Fox, he turned around real quick,

staring me in the eyes, almost nose to nose.

"Nobody will say a word."

From that point on, there was a cover-up of what happened.

It was the first step in a nuclear nightmare,

when a government official said that a breakdown

in an atomic power plant in Pennsylvania today

is probably the worst nuclear reactor accident to date.

I was teaching at UCLA in 1979, and there was an accident

at a nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,

called "Three Mile Island."

And my students wanted to research

whether there were nuclear activities

in the Los Angeles area,

and whether they had any problems.

And I said, "Sure. Go ahead."

I didn't think they'd find anything.

And within a period of a few weeks,

they discovered that there had been

a partial meltdown in the reactor,

at what we now call

"the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory."

They obtained documents, and photos,

and also film footage of the incident.

13 of the 43 uranium fuel elements

eventually became overheated.

The fuel swelled in size,

and structural damage was sustained.

The partial meltdown occurred in a reactor

that had no containment structure.

The radioactivity was so high

that they had to open this huge garage-type door

to try to vent the radioactivity

out towards Simi Valley,

and for that matter, the rest of L.A.

One scholar, Dr. Andre Nakatani,

had estimated that the radioactive iodine

released from meltdown could have been

250 times greater than the amount

released from the Three Mile Island accident.

TMI was a much larger reactor,

but it had a containment structure.

This is a smaller reactor,

but it had nothing to prevent greater activity.

The radiation was clear off of scales.

Wherever the wind is blowing, whichever direction,

that's where the radiation travels, of course,

just like smoke with a fire.

The man that was working there, they were so disturbed about it,

because all that radiation went over their own homes.

Five weeks after the accident occurred,

they issued a news release

embargoed for the Saturday morning paper.

And the press release didn't say

there had been a partial meltdown,

didn't said there was a serious accident,

didn't say there was any radiation.

They said just the opposite.

At the very moment that they issued that press release,

they were venting radioactive gases into the environment.

Despite the seriousness of the accident,

the official news release claimed there was

no indication of unsafe reactor conditions.

They lied.

And I couldn't say a word.

20 years I was silenced.

Good evening, everybody.

Has been showing us films

of a nuclear mishap

that occurred near Los Angeles 20 years ago,

but which has not been revealed to the public before.

Thank you, John.

The reactor was located 35 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

It was called The "Sodium Reactor Experiment," or SRE.

But in 1959, when it suffered its fuel rod melting,

the general public was not informed.

Local public safety officials weren't told much, either.

Today is the first time that I've heard

of the '59 incident, when you mentioned it a while ago.

Industry experts tell us that certain risks were taken.

Well, I was really appalled at the...

Sort of the cavalier attitude that they demonstrated.

It was actually very undramatic.

It did not appear to be a hazard to the public

or to our employees.

O feel less concerned about it than I would

the long-term effect of the smog of Los Angeles.

The potential hazard of a major release

into the environment was just not there.

And it's taken until this week, 20 years later,

for the details to be widely broadcast.

Olney: We all have the idea,

all of us who were involved in this project,

that it had been a cover-up.

We know that we had to approach this in a very,

very careful way, because we knew that

we were looking at a very powerful industry

that had not been challenged in the way

that we were prepared to challenge it ever before.

It was a scary proposition,

to take on the nuclear industry...

A very scary proposition.

So, the accident at Santa Susanna was serious,

and yet, there's room for debate on how well it was handled.

We knew we had something that was really important,

particularly in the context of what was going on

at Three Mile Island.

I think what it reveals is that this great guarantee

of the ultimate safety of the industry was a phony.

It was a fake.

It was wrong.

It was one of the worst nuclear accidents in history,

to that point.

No one knew until my students uncovered the documents

two decades later,

The material that we got

mostly came from an outfit in in Westwood

called "Bridge the Gap," which is an anti-nuclear group.

What happened at Santa Susanna

would not happen at a well-run facility.

This was a case of tremendous environmental negligence.

They cut corners over and over and over again.

The risks continued for many decades.

The nuclear work was over four decades.

The other aerospace work really didn't cease until 2006.

So, over the course of decades, in the course of accidents,

spills, releases, some intentional,

the soil, and the groundwater, and surface water runoff

has become very contaminated.

Produced by Rocketdyne, a division of North American,

in the canyons of Southern California,

the engine... sometimes called a "rocket,"

sometimes called a "power plant,"

sometimes "the booster"... Is on.

We'd all lived knowing that there were rocket tests.

We used to have big booms.

And we would see, like, mushroom clouds above the facility.

I would play outside with my friends until it got dark.

I'd be in the cul de sac, and we'd all look up, and...

We could hear those roars.

In California's Santa Susanna Mountains,

Rocketdyne engineers that created

America's largest propulsion field laboratory.

The whole of the Valley would shudder.

Tens of thousands of rocket tests.

And those would produce huge plumes

of contamination that would be spreading

at substantial distance.

On the ashes of campfires

built here by,

engines poured forth their pillars of flame.

Over 30,000 rocket engine tests.

And a lot of the chemical contamination

on the site is a result of that.

They ended up flushing out rocket test engines

with a very toxic solvent called "TCE"...

Hundreds of thousands of gallons,

leaving half a million gallons of TCE in the groundwater.

There was a hot lab there,

there they would re-process nuclear fuel

that was shipped in from around the country.

That lab had fires.

Gamma radiation is hard to work with sometimes.

They also had open burn pits.

There, they would take, each month,

100 or so 55-gallon drums of toxic chemicals,

and they would shoot at them with rifles, to ignite them.

And they would catch fire.

Huge plumes of toxic smoke.

Workers were killed because they were

illegally disposing of hazardous materials

by blowing them up on the property.

10 Nuclear reactors,

three of which suffered accidents.

These activities went on for decades.

During that period, the population just mushroomed.

And I think anyone who has a fear

of anything like that, they should be told,

given a chance to say, "No, I don't want to live here."

It did not appear to be a hazard to the public

or to our employees.

The potential hazard of a major release

into the environment was just not there.

The Santa Susanna Field Lab hill

is contaminated with a veritable who's who

of toxic chemicals, from heavy metals,

to dioxins, to percolate, to volatile organic acids,

and multiple radioactive neuclides,

which come from the nuclear partial meltdown,

and also numerous accidents over the years

with the other reactors on site.

When it comes to radioneuclides,

we actually describe not the half life...

Which is the time where, after which it would be half as potent

as it was, as it degrades.

We describe something called its "hazardous life,"

which is actually equivalent to 20 half-lives.

So, these are the most dangerous,

which we have well studied, and well...

A high awareness of their health impacts

that go on for these hundreds, if not half a million years.

Right now, half a million people

live within 10 miles of the site.

I'm asked over and over again, "Where is it safe?"

Where would it be dangerous?"

And after studying this for almost 40 years,

I'm afraid I can't answer that.

People need to understand that

the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory

is on a mountain.

Gravity wants to carry that contamination downhill.

There is not a glass wall surrounding Santa Susanna

that prevents contaminants

from being blown off-site by the wind.

The wind will carry the contaminants.

There is not some kind of a dam built around this site,

so that, when it rains,

the rainfall won't carry the contaminants.

So, when it rains, the surface water

carries the radioactivity down intermittent streams.

It's the headwaters of the Los Angeles River.

So, in terms of L.A. County,

you're contaminating everything along the L.A. river

and the various streams that lead to it.

There was a children's camp

called the "Brandeis-Bardin Institute,"

a Jewish training institute for young children

and for college students.

It is right beneath the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory.

There has been some contamination found

on the Brandeis property,

and there is concern about the health of the children

who have been or are going to that facility.

Soil contamination goes down through the Brandeis camp,

and into the arroyo, where that contaminated water

then percolates into the groundwater.

It's like gel.

Ew, dude.

What is that?

Do you feel good about?

Ready? Ow, wow.

That's fancy.

I don't know if you know, but pH-positive leukemia

is extremely rare.

Melissa, will you tell me what the statistic is?

Do you remember?

One in million.

And while we already know that Grace is one in a million,

she shouldn't have that kind of diagnosis.

You've taught all of us here how to keep going

in the face of something difficult,

and we'd like to present you with our Ever After Ball award.

My daughter's a fighter.

She's incredibly strong.

I could not be more proud of her,

and yet, part of me still grieves

that she has to be that way.

You know, I wish more than anything she could have

just had a normal childhood.

You know, she was diagnosed when she was 4.

That's almost before anyone can have a memory.

She was immediately limited from being around other kids

because of the germ factor.

But also, my son was so emotionally impacted.

Both of my children lost a big part of their childhood,

and that's not fair.

We can never give that back.

My husband and I are trying to heal our marriage

from all the separation and pain that we went through.

And then, what's left over is me.

But I have a lot of friends whose kids are still suffering.

She didn't get to make a choice if she wanted her child

to live next to this radiation.

She'd probably never heard of it before.

I don't think any of us should have had

to have picked up this burden.

But I can't unlearn what I know.

So, the... the... we'll have to wait for the...

You know what? Why don't you tell him

I'm being interviewed for a documentary on Santa Susanna,

and that I'll call her when I'm done.

And put the fear of God into her.

The site has three responsible parties.

There's the Department of Energy,

which leased part of its property from Boeing.

There's Nassau,

and then, there is Boeing itself,

which owns most of the site.

At some point, Rocketdyne was sold

to Rockwell International,

And Rockwell International eventually sold

its Rocketdyne division to Boeing.

And Boeing assumed the liabilities

of Rocketdyne for the contamination

of Santa Susanna.

The ultimate regulator of the Santa Susanna field site

is California,

and specifically the Department of Toxic Substances Control,

which is a subdivision of the California EPA.

California is the one who gets to say,

"This is how much gets cleaned up."

We have the authority to shut down a business

when we feel like the health of the community is at risk,

and when we see evidence of harm

to the environment, or to human health.

Grover: There were a lot of people that had a stake

in keeping this story under wraps.

I had a number of insiders at DTSC tell me,

"The people that run this agency have no interest

in telling the truth about Santa Susanna."

My station broke a huge story back in 1979.

A few years ago, the producer of that 1979 report

came to see me at KNBC, and he said,

"There is a lot more to the story that we broke back in '79."

You have to continue our work.

"You have to dig deeper."

You might be wondering why we should care about

a nuclear accident that happened more than half a century ago...

Because, as you're about to see,

thousands of people in the San Fernando

and Simi valleys have been secretly exposed

to dangerous radioactive fallout.

It was pretty clear to me that there were people

inside certain government agencies, like the DTSC,

who were very close with Boeing.

That was a very effective way for Boeing

to buy protection for themselves.

I was looking into the Department

of Toxic Substances Control,

and I decided to look into, how is it really regulating toxins?

And we did get very revealing material

that showed us that the DTSC is what I call a "captured agency."

It's captured by the polluters

but it's actually supposed to be regulating.

Insiders at the

State Department of Toxic Substance Control.

Told us that they were often too lenient with polluters

who didn't clean up contamination.

Boeing maintains that there have been

no adverse health impacts from contamination at Santa Susanna.

The DTSC has, while admitting the contamination

has gotten off site,

they'll say "it's not getting off site at levels"

that are harmful to human health."

And that's just not true.

Polluters are very adept at flattering regulators,

at grooming them,

taking them by the hand when they didn't know that much.

Kind of showed them the direction

of what they wanted things to look like.

I also, as you know, represent many private companies

who have also found to be balanced,

to be thorough, and to be just as open as she claims to be.

Santa Susanna is kind of a textbook civics lesson

in the way government works.

People work in government on an issue...

In this case, Santa Susanna... And then, they leave government,

and they can make a lot more money becoming a lobbyist

for the company involved in the issue...

In this case, Boeing.

The flotilla of fixers that were hired by Boeing,

many of them had direct connections to Jerry Brown,

or had worked for him.

It's been like a game of musical chairs.

A former environmental aide to Governor Brown,

a former head of the state EPA,

and the former chief lawyer of the DTSC,

have all switched sides, and worked on behalf of Boeing

to kill a full cleanup of Santa Susanna.

The Santa Susanna Field Laboratory

is a really complex cleanup.

It costs a lot of money.

And any time it costs a lot of money,

there's going to be politics at play.

That leads to delay.

In 2007, there was a consent order signed between the DTSC

and the responsible parties

that basically did not establish much of a cleanup standard.

It was very weak.

And it was exactly what Boeing wanted.

A recreational space cleanup, which is what Boeing is pushing,

is based off of people being on a site very infrequently.

That would result in 98% of the contamination

not being cleaned up.

People who live near Santa Susanna

do not live in recreational areas.

They live in residential areas.

All through the 2000s, there was an effort

to require full cleanup.

Then-state senator Sheila Kuehl

represented the area.

Introduced bill after bill.

Workers and neighbors have become sick,

and too many have died.

It's time to require full and complete cleanup.

I ask for your "aye" vote on SB-990.

And in 2007, she finally got her legislation through.

Believe it or not, under Schwarzenegger,

there was an actual serious effort to clean up that site.

But after Governor Brown came to office,

things shifted very dramatically.

Boeing, however, went to court to overturn the law.

And through some exceedingly troubling action

by the Brown administration, that lawsuit was lost.

Within five weeks of Jerry Brown being sworn in, in 2011,

a secret stipulation was entered into

between the state and Boeing in that lawsuit.

The state of California actually stipulated

that they would not contest any material fact

that Boeing would put forward in the suit.

And they actually agreed to that stipulation,

it's my understanding, before ever having seen

the material facts that Boeing was going to put forward.

The judge found it very easy to overturn the law.

The state waived the right to dispute anything

that Boeing might say

without knowing what those things would be.

It was a major blow.

And it was exactly what Boeing wanted.

And they got it.

There are those that think your agency is too cozy with Boeing.

I haven't seen it,

And I've looked for it.

NASA and the Department of Energy

also signed 2010 agreements with the State of California.

And these were actually really historic agreements.

And what they do is,

they say the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory

has to be cleaned up to background levels.

And essentially, what that means is that,

if there's contamination on site, it gets cleaned up.

From your vantage point, what is the status

of NASA's actions, with respect to the cleanup?

Yes, Congressman, all the information you just relayed,

it is my understanding, as well, that's where we are.

And NASA's committed to fulfilling

our obligations under the AOC.

I'm tired of fighting.

Let's clean up the background.

Let's get this site closed.

Yes, things happen.

Yes, they are unfortunate.

And we've made a commitment to clean it up.

That cleanup was supposed to already have been concluded

by 2017.

And Boeing and the federal agencies

have ensured it hasn't even started.

And I'm certain that these federal agencies

do not want to set a precedent,

in terms of really cleaning up to a proper standard.

And what happens when you cut your corners on safety is

you kill people.

And that's exactly what Boeing did with the 737 MAX.

That is their style.

The Department of Energy, NASA, and Boeing

have made repeated promises to clean it up,

as has the state Toxics agency that oversees them.

And those promises have been broken over and over again.

Will anyone from your agency talk to us at all?

My policy people have talked to you.

We've made a commitment to clean it up.

I've said all I'm going to say.

At the end of the day, because it's the right thing to do.

You've said nothing.

And that means that there have been years and years

of additional migration possible that wouldn't have been possible

if they had lived up to their commitments.

It's my commitment to the people of California that,

when I'm gone,

I've left in place a system that is robust,

defensible, and meaningful for the future.

Can you see how some people

would think this is more lip service?

I would hope they wouldn't.

You're going about everything is different. rom,

And it is truly the biggest nightmare

any parent could ever imagine.

In 2006, there was a cluster of retinoblastoma.

This is a rare eye cancer affecting young children.

There is just under 300 diagnosed in the United States,

and there were 11 cases right near the site.

We have very, very strong evidence

that the first group of mothers

whose children suffered from retinoblastoma did sue Boeing,

and did settle,

and as part of that settlement,

were no longer allowed to talk to the media, or get involved.

If you have a child with cancer, it's very expensive.

I know one mother in particular I talked to recently who,

their family is bankrupt, now, caring for their daughter.

So, I can understand, if I was one of those mothers,

why they might have went with that agreement.

And now, several years later, we're seeing new cases

of pediatric cancers that are near the site.

Any amount of exposure to some increased risk

over background cancer,

particularly for pregnant women and children.

The report, which came out in 2006,

that landmark study ended up showing

that there is no linear threshold...

That any level, any level of radionuclide exposure

above background

had an inherent increased risk of cancer.

There is a dramatic increase in very rare and bizarre cancers

that typically may happen a few times across the nation.

And what we've been noting over the years is,

we have children...

Not one, but two, or three, or four children

within the community surrounding the test lab

have these unusual cancers.

Boeing itself did risk assessments

of what the risk would be

if someone were to live on the property.

And their own estimate for some of the locations

was that the cancer risk

was as high as 96 out of 100...

Meaning, if 100 people live there,

96 would get cancer from the contamination.

The EPA and DTSC normally require

that the risk be kept at one in a million.

So, you can see how serious the contamination is,

and how large the problem would be if they left it behind.

We found documents that show the radiation has moved off site,

including at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute.

Bycel: My name is Lee Bycel,

and I was the president of the Brandeis-Bardin Institute

from spring of 2000 to June of 2003.

Prior to accepting the job, I asked the chair of the board

if there was anything that I needed to be worry about.

And she said, "It's all good."

We've had a settlement, and everything in that land

"has been cleaned up, and there's nothing to worry about."

I think one of the most surprising documents

we unearthed was an internal report commissioned by the camp

that proved there was a lot of contamination from Santa Susanna

that ran down into this children's camp.

And it was the basis for the camp

suing the owners of the field lab,

and then secretly settling that lawsuit.

So, when I hear about a settlement,

what comes to mind is that there's liability there.

We don't often want to hear the dark side of things.

We don't often want to hear that there's something wrong.

They have not been transparent

in exactly what's going on up there... even now.

How can one person be diagnosed with thyroid cancer at age 4,

with two recurrences,

and then end up with an extremely rare uterine cancer

with no family history of any kind?

We were four women, were all cancer-free.

And now, fast forward, we're only one cancer-free.

I had stage three to four bladder cancer.

I just was shocked.

And then, I was so angry.

My mother was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2001.

She passed away seven weeks later, at the age of 58.

And my father was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

in 2003.

He passed away in 2010.

My middle sister developed a goiter

when she was 11 years old.

And that later turned into thyroid cancer.

My father survived his cancer, and my mother suffered

with ovarian cancer and colon cancer.

And she couldn't take it,

so my mom actually ended up committing suicide.

My oldest sister was diagnosed with brain cancer

and glioblastoma.

As she was dying, two years later,

her own daughter was diagnosed with cancer, too.

And she passed just eight months after my sister.

To hear that your child has a life-threatening disease

absolutely shakes you to your core.

It was really, really devastating to the family.

Every day, it was like the rug was

being taken out from under us.

Our world ended on that day.

And this new reality had to come into existence.

I thought she was gonna beat it.

I really did.

She didn't.

I think we're just in denial.

Endy: Which is a beautiful thing, to be in denial,

because you get to enjoy every moment, you know?

So, that's the best thing.

Huff: I can't just leave.

It's hard to give everything up

because somebody can't do the right thing.

Where do you go that you really know you're safe?

You know, I mean, I moved here thinking I was safe.

And why should we leave?

We came here in good faith.

Why should we leave?

They need to clean up their crap.

You can't sit back, and pretend it's not real.

You have to do something.

Who is the person who could make a difference

in all of this?

Who can make a difference?

I'm never not thinking about it.

And I'm never not thinking about how we can...

We can change things because it's not only my community

I'm trying to protect.

I mean, we live here.

My... My kids live here.

Okay, Grace, you ready? Look both ways.

Good. Let's cross.

I will not.

I never thought I was smart growing up.

I never trusted myself

and I never really valued myself.

One of your presents,

you're gonna want to open sooner.

I do feel incredibly small.

And it's hard to say that because

with that comes the lack of control that I feel.

When Gracie got diagnosed,

there was this one moment in the hospital

where, you know, she had a port underneath her skin

and they had to pierce the port with a needle

to get her, you know, chemo or blood transfusions

or whatever it was she needed.

But they had a very specific process of cleaning

and sterilizing all the equipment

before you attach the two.

And I had, two days earlier,

had had a huge lesson on how to do it properly

because we had to do that at home.

And we're in the operating room,

and I saw the nurse wipe it twice.

And they were supposed to do at least 10 seconds of that.

And then they're supposed to let it dry for 20 seconds.

And in that one second, I realized,

"I need to say something. I need to stop this woman,"

because if she does that and there's bacteria,

it can go straight into Gracie's bloodstream

"through her heart, it can kill her."

In that same exact second, I thought,

"If I say something, she'll say,"

'What do you know? You're not trained.

I'm a nurse, you're not. How dare you.

I'm an authority figure. You're not.

I'm gonna embarrass you for bringing this up

"and rocking the boat.'"

And as she's going together,

I didn't... I didn't do anything.

Because I ended up being more afraid

of what she would say than protecting my daughter.

And thank God nothing happened,

but I swore that moment

I will never, ever let my children

be put in danger because I was too scared to speak up.

And I think that was the day I decided

I'm gonna hurt either way.

I might as well make a difference.

I have Melissa Bumstead.

- Melissa Bumstead... - Melissa Bumstead...

I hope I'm not talking too fast, but I'm pretty nervous.

This is alarming, and we are concerned...

The cancer moms in my community.

I mean, these children are on my street.

I've had it.

A group of seven mothers and I,

not really understanding what we were doing,

came to our first DTSC,

Department of Toxic Substance Control,

meeting to find out what is wrong?

Are we in danger?

And that was the first day I realized we are in danger.

Through the change.org petition,

we started to get traction and people started to care,

and I realized we weren't alone in this fight.

We're here because of numerous failures of regulators

to protect the public.

Reasonable people look at this and say

"This... This should not be happening."

I got up there and I was shaking my hand.

"How dare you do this to my community?"

You have lied about this, tried to confuse all of us.

"Why would you do this to us?"

Because it's cheaper for Boeing

to pay the relatively measly fees your board imposes

than to clean up their mess.

You regulate Boeing, not the other way around.

We are a force to be reckoned with.

♫ Papa was a rolling stone ♫

♫ Wherever he laid his hat was his home ♫

I've really changed. I've really healed.

And now I'm willing to have confrontation,

not for confrontation's sake,

but to protect people that I care about.

You know, I still wanted to throw up afterwards.

She's always been fierce.

Her motivation to never stop

just keeps getting stronger and stronger.

Melissa Bumstead is a superhero.

I've never met anyone like her.

She's the face of this cleanup.

She's got to keep going.

People like Melissa will change the tide of this fight,

and I know that she has changed it already.

There's nothing like a mom wanting to protect her children.

There's no force on Earth that is more powerful.

My daughter went through excruciating pain,

and she buried two of her friends last year.

We are praying to God that we finally get the cleanup

because sometimes I can't sleep at night

worrying that my children are in danger.

And I know that I'm not the only one.

Esparza: But what people maybe don't remember

is that we're fitting a lifetime into a year

or two or three or five.

- Yes. - And that, you know...

- So powerful, Gillian. - Predict the future.

And that's true. It's true for all of us.

One of the things that I wish we could have done

because she was in the process of getting a second wish granted

and her wish was to go was to go to Kleinfeld's in New York

and try on wedding dresses because her favorite show

was "Say Yes to the Dress." - Right.

And we would watch it in the hospital all the time.

And we got approved and we were planning it

in January of last year.

And we were gonna try to go in April.

Yeah.

But... But she didn't get to,

and it sometimes is really hard because I go, "Gosh",

she never got to try on a wedding dress.

"She never... She'll never get to walk down the aisle."

Like you said, we're trying to fit in a lifetime.

Right. In just a small number of years,

and that's... That's so powerful.

The day she passed away, my husband and I,

we weren't... we weren't ready to go home.

We left her at the hospital and that was the hardest thing

we ever had to do was to leave there without her.

It was so hard to trust in anything,

because all you feel is that tangible loss.

Keep praying and stay strong.

I tried to get to a protest the other day,

but my body wouldn't let me.

Melissa and I tell each other all the time,

like, "Just do what you can, and that's okay."

And don't feel bad."

But it was hard because I continued to feel guilty

because I was like,

"This... This fight doesn't stop just because I do."

But watching what Melissa has done over this last year

has just been remarkable.

Being a mom is hard enough.

Being a mom of a childhood cancer makes it harder.

Then being a mom who's trying to protect all the kids

in her community from some insidious exposure...

The level of responsibility you end up taking on and feeling

is daunting and draining and overwhelming.

I've seen the toll that it's taken on her

because it's frustrating when people don't listen.

But she still gets up and she still fights,

and she still is pushing so hard

because she's watched her friends

bury their children.

Melissa is the key to the cleanup.

Melissa now is leading the community in this effort,

and her voice is critical

and the leadership that she's shown

in organizing her community is critical,

and that will make or break everything.

Anything else that is worth putting a flag on?

I was thinking something like this

might even be good to put out to the community

who are trying to figure out how to message it

to hit the right target,

and we don't really know what the right next target is.

Right. And then randomly, she had an idea...

I admire Melissa more than I can begin to say.

She's taken this personal tragedy

and used that as motivation

and energy to try to protect others.

And I've been in meetings where Melissa and Grace

have gone to meet with state senators,

and they touched their hearts some.

It becomes much easier to do what a polluter wants you to do

if you don't see who gets hurt from it.

We really have to look to our decision makers

to commit to us that the site will be fully cleaned up

in a timely manner and that they will make that a priority.

How did you feel about the meeting, Melissa?

These hundreds of thousands of signatures on the petition

have turned things around quite a bit.

The question is, is it enough?

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, it sounds like they're driving through

the campaign trail, and we fit in it.

He said that they're gonna bring a lot of film cameras,

national news.

Okay, and so what if they say he's not ready to sign?

Like they already know he's not ready to sign?

But that's the conversation that he might go to immediately

because I'm going to call him. He asked that I would call.

Hi, hon. How you doing?

Right.

Yep. Yep, yep.

Okay. Okay. Right.

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

Good, I mean, at least I...

Okay. Thanks so much, you guys. I so appreciate you.

All right. All right. Bye.

Hey, hon.

I got a call from John Cox's campaign manager.

They weren't really making a huge effort,

and now it's four days before the election,

and all of a sudden they're, like, hounding me

to come to host this thing where Cox can step in

with all these, you know, crying cancer moms.

And it was just so much pressure in such a short amount of time

to try to figure things out.

You know, Denise has been great and she's saying,

"Melissa, you know, in the end, this has to be your call"

because this is your community

"and you need to do what you feel is right."

And then Dan's going like, "You can't do this.

"You know, you're walking into a trap," essentially.

And so when I got that word,

I called them up and said,

"I prayed about it. I don't feel good about it.

I'm sorry. I just can't do it."

And so I canceled.

I hate that. I hate that politics

has to be part of anything I do, to be honest.

I just like to be honest and do what I feel is right

and kind of always have my cards out.

I don't even know if I made the right choice,

and now people are mad at me, and I don't even know

if they're right or wrong. And I don't know anything.

I just feel like I don't know anything.

And then Dan saying, like...

I know he was trying to be nice, but I kind of wish he hadn't.

He said, "You know, it's kind of on your shoulders now, Melissa."

You've got to make this happen or we're all gonna lose."

And I was like...

You know, some people are trying to say, like,

"Oh, these people are using you and these people are using you."

And I'm a very small person.

You know, I'm...

This is not what I thought my life would be.

And I feel so little and I feel so powerless

right now, and doesn't stop.

And then I have these little times of melting down,

and then I pack it up and wash my face.

And then I go pick up the kids from school

and life just moves on.

I think that's all I have to say.

I've been dealing with the Santa Susana facility

for 39 years.

I tried to walk away from the Santa Susana issue

several years ago.

After the AOC was signed,

I thought there was no real need for me to continue,

it was gonna get cleaned up.

And then when the Brown administration

started to undo it, I failed at trying to stop them.

But I have not been able to somehow break what I feel

is a promise I made to those people.

Even though it was a promise I had no idea could take so long.

Santa Susana is not for the faint-hearted.

It's a long, complicated struggle.

I'm an advocate.

We've been working for 30 years with other groups

who've invested a similar amount of time.

And so it's hard to not also wonder, you know, what more...

Is there anything more that could have been done?

It's a fight between those who have conscience

and those who whose concern is primarily power and profit.

These fights never end.

And if you don't fight them, you always lose.

Right now, this fire is still growing pretty quickly here,

blowing out of the north-northeast.

And it's still continuing at about 35 to 40 miles an hour.

We're watching and we're looking at

some of these hotspots out here, and it is very disheartening

for any of these folks that are here living nearby.

The Woolsey Fire, now over 30000 acres burnt.

It's just a monster, a nightmare out here.

This entire neighborhood has been obliterated.

All the mountains around here are scorched.

Winds out here not really helping the situation.

This fire is fast.

It is fueled by those Santa Ana winds.

Flames continuing to burn.

We have been this really just run down the hillside.

You really can see how vast this wildfire is,

threatening tens of thousands of homes.

Firefighters are doing everything they can

to slow this thing down.

This fire here is still being very stubborn.

Working its way out of the Rocketdyne complex

over in the Bell Canyon.

And just see how terrible the air quality is out here as well.

We had to get up to about 10,000 feet just to get some

clear air to breathe around here.

Our worst fear for 15 years,

that if a fire ever happened at the lab,

it would be the easiest way for those contaminants

to get to the public.

And here it's happened.

There are three questions that we're investigating

about the devastating Woolsey Fire...

Where and how did the fire start,

and is the smoke, the smoke that is still

rising from the ground, toxic?

There is mounting evidence that the fire started

at the Santa Susana Field Lab.

There is growing concern tonight

over toxic fallout from the Woolsey Fire.

Government officials say

testing shows the air is safe.

Some doctors and advocates call that a smoke screen.

Smoke from any brush fire is dangerous to inhale.

In this case, with these added, very hazardous elements,

it makes it far more dangerous.

A statement today

from the Department of Toxic Substances Control

says initial tests show...

official news release claimed there was no...

no risk to people living nearby.

It did not appear to be a hazard to the public.

No discernible signs of radiation.

The potential hazard of major release

into the environment was just not there.

What was significant about the Woolsey Fire

is that it started on the property

of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

It's very distressing when you know how terribly

polluted it is to then turn on the television

and see it in flames.

After the fire, you know, 80% of the site burned.

We have learned since then that NASA took down tanks and piping

and had moved a fire station that, had they been in place,

could have put that fire out.

Regardless of what happens to the site,

it's always going to be in a fire-risk area.

So why one would remove water tanks and piping,

I don't know.

And after the fire, DTSC released an interim report.

For them to release a report

that shows them doing air monitoring after the fire

is silly.

The greatest risk was during a fire.

They have now admitted that the burned vegetation

made the contaminants in the soil more mobile,

and that's part of the reason why we have these 57 exceedances

in storm water runoff after the fire.

But the bottom line is if it had been cleaned up

as it should have been by 2017,

we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The vegetation on site is contaminated.

And as the vegetation burned,

it then aerosolized high up into the atmosphere

and then was able to spread across the basin.

Our concern, admittedly for the fire

was that the contamination

probably spread mainly the toxic chemicals,

which come from the burning of fuels

and the rocket engine firings.

The dangerous levels of exposure to chemical contaminants

somewhat follow a similar pattern to the radionuclides.

Every level increases the risk.

My name is Mike Stenstrom.

I'm a member of the expert panel.

And so I'd like to say that we've been involved in this,

the panel has, since almost the inception of the fire.

We are an independent panel.

We are funded by Boeing,

and we've been using Geosyntec to assist us.

But, you see, there's a trend of decreasing exceedances

as we move forward in time.

Concentrations over the course of the season

are returning to pre-fire levels.

We have what we have here is a lot of exceedances

in areas where you don't see a lot of legacy contamination.

So the system's already recovering,

and we're happy about that.

My name is Denise Duffield. I'm the associate director

at Physicians for Social Responsibility of Los Angeles.

I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe,

though, after this very Orwellian presentation.

57 exceedances and violations is astonishing.

The expert panel is paid by Boeing.

That begs a lot of credulity on their independence.

It's an open, seeping wound in our community

that threatens our public health every time it rains

or the wind blows or the fires burn.

I live in Simi Valley.

I have a 3-year-old.

I'm a Golden State Water customer.

I've got groundwater from below SSFL

being pumped into my home with every bath,

with every meal.

It's your job to protect my water source.

You regulate Boeing, not the other way around.

Thank you.

I'm a little disappointed today.

I had actually assumed that it would be

an independent panel, expert panel speaking today.

I didn't know anything about politics

until the last five years, and I've learned

that you always have to follow the money.

That's the basic understanding of how America works these days,

unfortunately, and I was very disappointed.

I'm sure their intellect is...

Is better than mine, hands down.

However, that's not an independent panel,

and the people of Los Angeles deserve better

on such a critically important issue.

We've got a lot of facts. We know the facts.

We're all intelligent people here.

But I think what is lacking is courage to do the right thing.

And so I wanted to bring you my daughter's beads of courage.

My daughter is a two-time cancer survivor at 9 years old.

I heard a lot of good news about nominal exceedances,

but you need to understand that these exceedances affect us.

We've come to find out that our area

is above the national average for childhood cancers.

We've had several who've passed away

and this is the cost of exceedances,

and I really ask you to have the courage

to do the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Grover: This was part of what was so amazing

about this story to me.

I grew up near the Field Lab.

Thousands of people have lived near the Field Lab,

and most people have never heard of it.

The Santa Susana issue was almost dead,

and that fire jumpstarted a whole new round of attention.

Millions are learning about the toxic threat

from the contaminated Santa Susana Field Lab,

all because of tweets from the Kardashians.

When the Woolsey Fire hit, it blew up.

Without a doubt, there's new life.

- People are paying attention. - People are listening.

The community support has radically changed.

Kim Kardashian tweeted.

All of a sudden, we've got 100,000 shares on a tweet.

Kim Kardashian telling her 58 million Twitter followers

she's shocked and furious to learn that Woolsey Fire

started at Santa Susana and is potentially radioactive.

The reporting we did brought some attention,

but of course, the Kardashians

can bring the issue way more attention.

- People are believing in this, you know,

like, this is the real thing.

We're not just playing games anymore.

Come on, guys,

we're going on the other side of the side, okay?

These are all my other children here.

I'm seeing enough changes happening that I am hopeful

it could be ripped out from underneath us at any moment.

I know what it's like to lose a child with cancer,

and nobody should ever have to face that again.

The Killers: ♫ You can't break me down ♫

♫ I got gas in the tank ♫

♫ I got money in the bank ♫

♫ I got news for you, baby, you're looking at the man ♫

It has gone so fast that I'm still out of breath.

We're trying to put together a coalition

with all of our elected officials.

People need to stop passing the ball, take leadership.

♫ Who's the man? Who's the man? ♫

♫ I'm the man, I'm the man ♫

♫ Who's the man with the plan? ♫

♫ I'm the man ♫

Knack: They are counting on us, not goodness.

They're counting on us, not being able to see

the bigger picture.

I really hope we're not sitting here in 10 years,

with the follow up of why this damn thing's been happening.

We never know what domino we're setting into effect

when we just do what we can.

Secretary, so you're supposed to be completed by 2017,

haven't started by 2019.

Will you come to the San Fernando Valley

and explain to people when this site

will be cleaned up?

The clean up timeline was 2017.

Back in 2010, it is 2019, and we haven't even got started,

There's a level of toxicity,

the history that is just depressing.

I mean, it's a complete mess.

When I got to say I'm the mom who started

the change.org petition,

we have 650,000 signatures.

It was like, I'm sorry, did you say, 250,000?

No, 650,000.

All of a sudden they're like, "Oh, come to the door.

What was your name again? Where are you from?"

It's not about winning or being right.

It's about children.

It's about families, it's about quality of life.

I know that there's a risk

of a large segment of this community

and maybe even the larger Los Angeles area

looking at this

and questioning our sanity.

But I would urge anybody

to put on your reading glasses and whip out that 13 pages,

it's only 13 pages, 2007 EPA report,

preliminary report at the Santa Susana Field Lab

and then call me crazy.

It is if the officials have not read the data

as if they are completely unaware that we,

the citizens, could be at risk.

And that was alarming to me

because I felt like we weren't being taken seriously.

It makes me sick that these women have given

so selflessly of themselves

and a fight... have fought and continue to fight.

This is not what they want to talk about over dinner.

They don't want to sit up and read EPA documents.

They want to have a good time, they don't have a barbecue

and they want to watch their kids play in the yard.

And I want that, too.

I'm sorry. I want that, too,

and I want that for my family, but, um...

I can read.

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't read it.

Sorry.

Santa Claus is coming! Santa Claus is coming!

- Can I have a chocolate? - Can I have a chocolate?

You're a good boy! You're a good boy.

The time is now to get the ball moving.

My goal has been to change and improve, I would say,

the culture of the Department of Toxic Substance Control.

They are the regulator, they set the clean up standards,

this is not a ongoing negotiation.

The polluters have a role, they have to pay for it,

and they have to adhere to the standards that we have here.

These entities going in 2007,

Department of Energy and NASA in 2010 entered into agreements.

Those are legally binding agreements.

We will hold them to those agreements.

- We'll see. - We'll see. I have no faith.

Given the length of time that the cleanup plans

have been made and broken, it's always a concern

that this will go into another administration.

They signed a legal binding document in 2010

when we thought we won the victory.

Additionally, studies performed after signing the AOC

identified less contamination than previously projected.

We had no idea it was all going to get thrown upon.

I am a two-time cancer survivor.

It has turned my life upside down, and I never feel safe

living here.

I want to feel safe.

Folks, this way.

We're here at the NASA meeting right now.

They're trying to justify why they should be able to lead

contaminated waste in our community.

I want to show you one of

these justifications that I can't believe,

and I've seen a lot of falsehoods... Oh, my gosh.

SEIS found no discernible differences

to health and safety.

Across the action alternatives. That's absurd.

NASA claims that under federal environmental law,

that they have to look at different alternative ways

to clean up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

They're wrong.

California has been clear over the years

that the level that the site has to be cleaned up

to is to background.

If there is contamination, it gets cleaned up.

We clearly signed an agreement for full cleanup.

And they have proposed in these two meetings to break those

and walk away from the contamination.

If they found contamination on the surface,

they're saying we're going to have to dig all

20 feet down to bedrock

and that's going to moonscape the property.

You don't have to dig 20 feet down to remove contamination

that's on the surface.

They're doing that to try to scare people about trucks

and moonscaping and all of that stuff.

What NASA and Department of Energy

have been doing in the last few years

is looking at different levels of cleanup

rather than different ways

of reaching the standards that California has set.

Their stated thing is, oh, we did more work,

we found more contamination

that would result in even more damage.

So we want to do the recreational cleanup.

It's not okay to just clean it up a little bit,

it's kind of like you can't be just a little bit pregnant.

Either you're radioactive or you're not.

NASA's says that it will take 25 years

to remove this soil that needs to be removed in order to comply

with the administrative order on consent.

For the Department of Energy and NASA

to be successful in walking away from Santa Susana Field Lab,

All that has to happen is that nobody stands in their way.

In order to make informed public commentary,

we need to have some visuals.

When you go to a public place

and everybody else has their exhibits set up to come in

and set up another one.

I'm on the board of supervisors

and what we do during public comments

is we give an opportunity a platform.

If they have a PowerPoint so they can show these power... They have an opportunity.

In public hearings,

when they were done the way they used to do them,

we would stand in front of the microphone

and people before the responsible party,

before their community members speak for two minutes,

and give their input on the proposal before them.

And NASA just destroyed all of that.

This whole thing was set up intentionally to prevent people

from making informed public comment.

No presentation only posters with NASA's propaganda spin.

The community needs to hear the truth, and we're the only

ones who can do it. I understand that but...

But we do it as part of our public comment.

Great, but they put the public thing on

for their display and everything.

So all the things that they set up here...

This is math that they're not going to show people.

What they feel is it's going to take away from...

It's a public...

Everybody, NASA is preventing public comment on their EIS

that breaks their clean up commitments.

If people want to be able to show you

how they're violating the law

and NASA's physically blocking you from seeing it.

Free speech!

- Free speech! - Free speech!

Free speech!

This is live right now, you guys, this is crazy.

They set this up in this... In this kind of a situation

where we don't have a microphone

like we normally do to say our problems.

And as the "L.A. Times" reported... The court reporter,

is at a little table in the corner

that's not marked trying to limit public participation,

prevent the media from knowing

how much we didn't like the proposal

and prevent elected officials from knowing that, too.

There's a protocol for how the public hearings are handled,

and that's not it.

The only... the only option we have right now

is to try to read our comments loudly and that's...

That's just absurd.

The majority of its contamination not cleaned up.

This is illegal and a direct threat to public health

and the environment.

NASA's search is preparing the supplemental EIF...

You should be able to give

three minutes and then you can do what you want.

Free speech!

Trespassing?

This is a public meeting.

Free speech, free speech, free speech,

free speech, free speech!

In 50 years of this kind of work,

I have never experienced such a thing.

What NASA knows that what its proposing to do is indefensible.

And they took every measure that they could to prevent the public

from hearing about it.

For the responsible parties,

this is a game.

NASA and Boeing continue to put forth a storyline

that their recommendations,

their offerings of cleanup are adequate.

And we know, as we've alluded to,

that so many of the agents there is absolutely no safe level.

Again, if there's no safe level

and you far exceed those levels on site and again,

and we know that those contaminants migrate off site

under the appropriate environmental conditions,

there's no way that can protect the community around.

An emenuclear reservationlared at the Hanford

in southeastern Washington state.

An emergency response at the Savannah River site.

Potential exposure to people living

near Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis County.

Enriched uranium was detected

inside Zahn's Corner Middle School.

Botched cleanup at San Francisco's

Hunter's Point has residents taking matters

into their own hands.

There are calls tonight for a new investigation

into another possible cancer cluster in central Indiana.

Just sit and think that over and over again,

this was brought to you and over and over again

and we said our kids are sick.

Something that felt like a very isolated problem

in my community,

it's a little bit terrifying to realize

this is happening all over the country.

We sat in a room and listened to people from other areas

with the exact same issues the poorly or unlined pits,

massive dumping, open air tests.

I was completely chilled to my core

because I realized this isn't an accident

nor is it a mistake.

There are many Santas Susana's all across this country

that remain highly contaminated and threatening communities

and has not been cleaned up.

It's all across America.

It's the same players, different humans,

but the same agencies, the same attitudes.

But let's face it,

this community has been traumatized enough.

That wasn't for this group of moms

that made this Facebook page, I would've not known.

There's an endemic problem with the whole system.

You can have wonderful environmental laws

and we have really powerful ones,

but if they're not enforced, they're useless.

And that has happened at dozens and dozens

of toxic sites in the state of California

and probably is emblematic of what goes on,

unfortunately, all over the country.

The Committee on Oversight

and Investigations would now come to order.

I would now like to introduce the honorable Anne White,

who is the Assistant Secretary,

Office of Environmental Management,

Department of Energy.

Madam Chair, the government's nuclear defense programs

played an integral role in ending World War II

and the Cold War.

Our nation was unified in its effort to end those wars.

That kind of resolve and unity of purpose is needed today

as we address the resulting environmental legacy.

We remain committed to completing cleanup

so that our host communities can envision a vibrant future.

We can continue to live in the past,

or we can choose to understand the past,

make course corrections, and move forward

with collaborative solutions.

It's time to choose the latter.

You know, I've been on this committee a long time.

We've seen DOE make these promises before

with regards to clean up operations.

What exactly does it mean

that DOE's Environmental Management Office

does not follow ED management practice.

Anybody that's been on this job site should be fired.

They're not doing their job right.

Where does Hanford sit? It sits on the Columbia River.

Where does Savannah River site sit?

It sits on the Savannah River.

These are areas that are environmentally sensitive.

Look, I'm not a nuclear engineer,

but I'm a mom and a citizen,

and I can tell you that leaving it out there longer

waiting for some type of accident is not making

our constituents across this country safer.

We need to do better in the program

and project management, and I think we can do better.

I do not believe government has done enough to try

and build that bridge of trust.

My name is Anne White and my position

was assistant secretary of Energy

for Environmental Management

referred to as EM1.

Obviously, when you've got portions of the public

all over the country who are unhappy with what you're doing,

you're probably not doing enough,

especially for a site like Santa Susana, small site.

It doesn't even usually come to the radar of an EM1.

It's tough.

Those kind of big bureaucracies are very challenging.

It kind of just felt sometimes like a culture of...

molasses.

Since 2011, EM has spent over 45 billion

to try to address the cleanup responsibilities.

And yet, we seem no closer to cleaning up these sites

or reducing the department's environmental liabilities.

EM cleanup right now is the third biggest liability

to the US taxpayers.

We throw $7 billion a year into that pot,

and the liabilities don't go down.

Did the taxpayer get good value for the $6 billion EM

roughly spent last fiscal year on nuclear waste?

I believe that the taxpayer got good value for their money.

- Okay. - We can do better, though.

So many of these sites are in places

where they are the only game in town in terms of employment.

If the cleanup gets completed, the jobs go away.

And so to some degree, EM become a jobs program.

Cleanup of these sites is critically important.

We need to have it happen and we can't be sitting here

again in five, 10 or 20 years hoping that it will.

The actions EM needs to take

involve significant cultural change

at DOE headquarters, the sites, and the contractors.

When it involves kids and moms and all of these things,

maybe they've been heard, but not listened to.

And there's there's a difference,

I suppose, there's a big difference.

And at Santa Susana right now,

honestly, the conversation well could be so poisoned

that there... there is no reverse gear

in terms of building that trust.

You just may never come to common ground.

And that's a pity,

but that's maybe the nature of the beast there. Unfortunately.

I'm sure I didn't have enough energy for it, I think.

I don't think we did it last year.

Although, I don't know if daddy will want me

to do it this year.

Yeah...

Poster or something instead.

You need to push down your cuticle

and I'll come back to that one.

- It's pretty. - It is pretty.

Like how glittery it is.

I feel... I feel more hopeful,

even though right now things are looking

pretty glum again for the cleanup right now.

I'm more at peace with the thought

that this could be the rest of my life.

Before that, that thought was just too frightening.

I feel like whether or not it's the Santa Susana Field Lab

or maybe helping other sites.

If this were to be the rest of my life,

I would... I wouldn't fight it.

I had my own plans for my life, I wanted to...

I wanted to illustrate kids' books

and I wanted to be an author and I wanted to garden

and, you know, I had a really simple life planned out

and it sounded just fantastic.

And the thought of not getting to have time

to excel at any of those things was really hard.

As I was praying about it, I felt like God said,

I'm allowed to have a hobby.

I was like, all right, I can take my dreams

and let them be a hobby

and doing this is more important than anything I had planned.

I definitely feel like this

is where I'm supposed to be in my life right now.

It took Gracie a lot of... a lot of hard work and time

to really kind of be a regular kid again.

She's not the kind of kid to just lay down and take it.

She's really strong.

But the health effects

will follow her all the rest of her life.

I have had some people accuse me

of using Grace's story.

To some degree, that's really true.

If I could have brought people's hearts along

without having to show Gracie's story, I wouldn't have.

But if it helps other families

not have to go through the same thing,

you know, and then I-I don't regret it.

I don't think Grace would regret it.

I think she understands that,

you know, before we're willing to do anything to protect other

kids from what she's gone through.

Fixing her name and like...

Her birthday and stuff, it's just so final.

Sorry.

The Santa Susana Field Lab

is I wouldn't say it's always in the front of my mind,

but it is consistently in the back of my mind.

In the back of my mind, when I give my kids water

or give them a bath, in the back of my mind

when I see a new kid diagnosed,

in the back of my mind,

when I see another kid who's passed away.

It's a hard one, I know I can't put all of my energy there.

I'm still working my way back to being fully present

with everybody, and my kids need their mom.

I've been slowly putting pieces back together

and I'm not as lost.

I'm still lost, but not as lost

if that makes sense.

For me, I know I can never give up trying to fight.

But I also know that I...

I have to use this brain sparingly because it's focused

on so many different things right now.

I'm trying to heal, I'm trying to process,

trying to grieve, trying to be a mom.

But it's always there.

It's always this lingering question in my mind,

it's always this idea that is there

and it can't be quieted until

it's cleaned up, I think.

I hope that there's an end to this story.

Given what's happening in our country,

I worry about all of our efforts to protect public health.

I worry that focusing on Santa Susana

will seem like a luxury,

that it will seem like days have passed

when you actually could fight a fight and you might just win

and you could get a cleanup agreement

and you could do community organizing

and you could speak freely.

We are in a world of distraction and of self-centeredness,

but we don't sense any connection to others

and particularly to

those who suffer and if we don't connect to the damage

we do to the planet,

the everyday people who are affected by

polluters are just being walked all over.

The damage that is done over the last century,

we simply have to keep fighting.

I've been a reporter for 38 years.

I've seen just about everything.

I'm still surprised that there were government officials

who looked me in the eye and said,

"Santa Susana's not a problem."

Even when there were so many government documents

that said otherwise.

I mean, I think the public is not so easily fooled.

They know there's something here.

The truth always comes out in the end.

I think it takes an enormous amount of courage.

And a hell of a lot of work

to see that there is accountability

and that something is done.

It's up to the mothers.

And others who have the courage, have the time to make damn sure

that something happens if there's change.

It may be the only way.

Who's going to be the next child,

who's going to be the next person in your community.

You don't ever give up on something like this

because it's the right thing to do.

Where the people lead, the leaders will follow.

Being in a low right now doesn't feel like defeat,

it just feels like part of the journey.

And the thing that's heartbreaking

is that it's just going to continue.

But it's the kids who have to suffer,

and it's the parents who have to bury them

that have to bear that for the rest of our lives.

Oh, I'm not going to stop so we'll just have to

find out who has more endurance me or them, maybe.