6 ms·

1959 Santa Susana meltdown

50 points by moviewise 4y ago

anonymousiam 4y ago
Old news, but personally interesting because I spent some time working at the labs up there. The building I worked in was across the street from where the meltdown occurred. Even the building I was in had a history of nuclear accidents (at least three that required cleanup). Nobody ever used the tap water there for anything other than flushing a toilet. Boeing got the property when it acquired Rocketdyne. Boeing was stupid to not recognize the huge liability it took on.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  The L.A. Times reported yesterday that Boeing seems to have dodged its cleanup problems by entering into a conservation easement on the site. That might be why this old news is cropping up on HN today.
bcrosby95 4y ago
Related: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265931X21002277 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02659... This shit was supposed to be cleaned up 5 years ago.
dchuk 4y ago
Grew up nearby, I just assumed everyone was used to rocket engine tests so loud that things world fall off the shelves. Later in life would drive up there and park facing the San Fernando valley to drink beer, awesome view. Only later did I learn these were irradiating activities.
- labster 4y ago
  What a glowing review. As a Ventura native, I approve.
  - dchuk 4y ago
    Most of my family ended up in Ventura. Love that city.
- WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
  >Grew up nearby, I just assumed everyone was used to rocket engine tests so loud that things world fall off the shelves. This is no joke. I experienced the same in the 1980's. 1st time it happened to me, I thought an earthquake was happening. Everyone around me didn't give it a second thought. I grew up close enough that I wouldn't be surprise if I glow at night. It's a joke - I hope. The meltdown comes up every few years. It's a big deal yet we live our lives as if nothing happened. I don't know what to think.
- xattt 4y ago
  Was it irradiating because the area was contaminated, because the engine firings were kicking up fallout or were these nuclear rockets?
basementcat 4y ago
One of the better preserved Native American cave paintings in California is within the SSFL security perimeter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_Flats_site https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_Flats_site
- ncmncm 4y ago
  > "Archaeologists estimate the paintings to be several hundred years old." They don't say what basis was used for the estimate. Age estimates are almost always a lower bound, except where some radiocarbon date can be established, rare for rocks. We know hominins were in the region 130,000 years ago, based on a butchered mastodon (with major bones split for marrow) found near San Diego. Nobody knows what species, or if they left descendants into the present.
Asparagirl 4y ago
When I bought my house in Los Angeles (in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, not particularly close to the accident site), in 2005, the closing documents I had to sign had disclosures about the accident.
- carlivar 4y ago
  You were probably occasionally downwind.
mixmastamyk 4y ago
The sixty-year old nuclear disaster and toxic spills that still almost no one knows about due to decades of cover ups, in the vicinity of residential areas to the west of Los Angeles. Comparable to Three Mile Island, but built in a rickety warehouse with no containment. How many folks died from cancer as a result? I personally have known quite a few, but hard to say definitively.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ncmncm 4y ago
  And so, of course, never, ever counted among the always "vanishingly small" number of victims of the nuke industry. Its most reliable product was dishonestly, from day one.
  - ReadTheLicense 4y ago
    Which company ducked it up there?
coobird 4y ago
I'm surprised that there are still new cases of people, especially children, who are getting cancer in the area. High cancer rates surrounding the area has been reported for decades and I recall watching local TV news reports about it in the 2000s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Medical_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#...
- defrost 4y ago
  Just for anybody caual browsing here; we can't just blame the radiation and isotopic waste: > During its years of operation, highly toxic chemical additives were widely used in order to power over 30,000 rocket engine tests and to clean the rocket test-stands afterwards. > In addition, considerable nuclear research and at least four nuclear accidents occurred, which resulted in the SSFL becoming a seriously contaminated site and an offsite pollution source, requiring a sophisticated multi-agency Cleanup Project
  - bb88 4y ago
    - defrost 4y ago
      No. Think of my comment as emphasing the range of the "Choose your toxic pollutant" offered up by lab activities over the decades.
    - icehawk 4y ago
      Given that the GP quotes "nuclear research and at least four nuclear accidents occurred" that's a pretty ungenerous assumption to make. That's not blame shifting, that's blame expansion; all of these causes are activities from the same organization, and the blame should be attributed to them.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      You have to accept that HN has alot of technical/engineering folks who are trained to solve scoped problems. Some are very vocal proponents of nuclear energy, for valid reasons. Because nuclear technology and military requirements go hand in hand, you’re always going to have the dissembling, the misinformation and the propaganda elements tightly aligned with anything nuclear. Nobody ever knows the full story, and advocates can always latch on to some bizarre statistic, like “More people have been killed by cordless drills installing solar panels per gigawatt hour than have ever died from electric generation with nuclear power.”
acidburnNSA 4y ago
I hope we're measuring and disseminating dose rate and dose rate hazard information these days. I hate that I ctrl-f these kinds of articles for mSv (measure of radioactive dose) and never find it. The reactor type they were testing there is actually super interesting. It was a liquid metal cooled reactor (LMR) with slow neutrons. We have made lots of fast-neutron LMRs, but only a tiny handful of slow-neutron LMRs. They're interesting because they get the neutronics efficiencies of slow neutrons (e.g. they can start up and operate with very low enriched uranium) while also getting the benefits of cooling with liquid metal (low-pressure passive safety, high temperature heat, low corrosion, single phase flow). It's my favorite reactor type actually. The SRE in LA was the prototype for the Hallam reactor in Nebraska. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Nuclear_Power_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Nuclear_Power_Facility
- ncmncm 4y ago
  I.e., we already have seen entirely enough of them.
doyouevensunbro 4y ago
I live near here. They have built housing on top of the waste drainage area. We tried to protest but it did no good. They say they trucked out the rest of the waste but no one really believes it.
ncmncm 4y ago
This event, and everything around SS, was just par for the nuke industry. Forbidding staff from warning their families about contamination was typical evil. There is never any expectation that any nuke project will do better, absent strict regulation and rigorous enforcement. It is why the public is very sensibly sour on nukes. But the only thing stopping more of it, today, is that they cost way more than alternatives. Always did, but it is harder now to paper over.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > the nuke industry This wasn't "the nuke industry". It was a government testing lab. No member of the public has been harmed by actual commercial nuclear power plants. All of the dicey stuff (and there was a lot more of it than just this) was done by the government. > There is never any expectation that any nuke project will do better, absent strict regulation and rigorous enforcement So you want the government that set this testing lab up to do the regulation and enforcement?
  - morsch 4y ago
    Debatable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident_health_effects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident_h...
    - shakow 4y ago
      Have you read the article you post? Virtually no-one was able to find a statistically relevant affect on health in then neighbouring population. > The American Nuclear Society concluded that average local radiation exposure was equivalent to a chest X-ray and maximum local exposure equivalent to less than a year's background radiation. > the study found no link between fallout and cancer risk > "no consistent evidence" of causation by TMI > found rates as expected in the county in which the reactor is located
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Anyway the American Nuclear Society was not "able". No one seemed interested in the experience of people living near the river, gassed by the volume of radioactive krypton gas "vented" that (being much denser than air) poured down and spread out over the river banks.
Animats 4y ago
Well-known event.[1] Some release of Kr-85 (half life 11 years) and Xe-133 (half life 5 days.) It's been 62 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment

50 points by moviewise 4y ago

Old news, but personally interesting because I spent some time working at the labs up there. The building I worked in was across the street from where the meltdown occurred. Even the building I was in had a history of nuclear accidents (at least three that required cleanup). Nobody ever used the tap water there for anything other than flushing a toilet. Boeing got the property when it acquired Rocketdyne. Boeing was stupid to not recognize the huge liability it took on.

jeffbee 4y ago
The L.A. Times reported yesterday that Boeing seems to have dodged its cleanup problems by entering into a conservation easement on the site. That might be why this old news is cropping up on HN today.

bcrosby95 4y ago

Related: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265931X21002277 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02659... This shit was supposed to be cleaned up 5 years ago.

dchuk 4y ago

Grew up nearby, I just assumed everyone was used to rocket engine tests so loud that things world fall off the shelves. Later in life would drive up there and park facing the San Fernando valley to drink beer, awesome view. Only later did I learn these were irradiating activities.

labster 4y ago
What a glowing review. As a Ventura native, I approve.
- dchuk 4y ago
  Most of my family ended up in Ventura. Love that city.
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
>Grew up nearby, I just assumed everyone was used to rocket engine tests so loud that things world fall off the shelves. This is no joke. I experienced the same in the 1980's. 1st time it happened to me, I thought an earthquake was happening. Everyone around me didn't give it a second thought. I grew up close enough that I wouldn't be surprise if I glow at night. It's a joke - I hope. The meltdown comes up every few years. It's a big deal yet we live our lives as if nothing happened. I don't know what to think.
xattt 4y ago
Was it irradiating because the area was contaminated, because the engine firings were kicking up fallout or were these nuclear rockets?

basementcat 4y ago

One of the better preserved Native American cave paintings in California is within the SSFL security perimeter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_Flats_site https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_Flats_site

ncmncm 4y ago
> "Archaeologists estimate the paintings to be several hundred years old." They don't say what basis was used for the estimate. Age estimates are almost always a lower bound, except where some radiocarbon date can be established, rare for rocks. We know hominins were in the region 130,000 years ago, based on a butchered mastodon (with major bones split for marrow) found near San Diego. Nobody knows what species, or if they left descendants into the present.

Asparagirl 4y ago

When I bought my house in Los Angeles (in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, not particularly close to the accident site), in 2005, the closing documents I had to sign had disclosures about the accident.

carlivar 4y ago
You were probably occasionally downwind.

mixmastamyk 4y ago

The sixty-year old nuclear disaster and toxic spills that still almost no one knows about due to decades of cover ups, in the vicinity of residential areas to the west of Los Angeles. Comparable to Three Mile Island, but built in a rickety warehouse with no containment. How many folks died from cancer as a result? I personally have known quite a few, but hard to say definitively.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ncmncm 4y ago
And so, of course, never, ever counted among the always "vanishingly small" number of victims of the nuke industry. Its most reliable product was dishonestly, from day one.
- ReadTheLicense 4y ago
  Which company ducked it up there?

coobird 4y ago

I'm surprised that there are still new cases of people, especially children, who are getting cancer in the area. High cancer rates surrounding the area has been reported for decades and I recall watching local TV news reports about it in the 2000s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Medical_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#...

defrost 4y ago
Just for anybody caual browsing here; we can't just blame the radiation and isotopic waste: > During its years of operation, highly toxic chemical additives were widely used in order to power over 30,000 rocket engine tests and to clean the rocket test-stands afterwards. > In addition, considerable nuclear research and at least four nuclear accidents occurred, which resulted in the SSFL becoming a seriously contaminated site and an offsite pollution source, requiring a sophisticated multi-agency Cleanup Project
- bb88 4y ago
  - defrost 4y ago
    No. Think of my comment as emphasing the range of the "Choose your toxic pollutant" offered up by lab activities over the decades.
  - icehawk 4y ago
    Given that the GP quotes "nuclear research and at least four nuclear accidents occurred" that's a pretty ungenerous assumption to make. That's not blame shifting, that's blame expansion; all of these causes are activities from the same organization, and the blame should be attributed to them.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    You have to accept that HN has alot of technical/engineering folks who are trained to solve scoped problems. Some are very vocal proponents of nuclear energy, for valid reasons. Because nuclear technology and military requirements go hand in hand, you’re always going to have the dissembling, the misinformation and the propaganda elements tightly aligned with anything nuclear. Nobody ever knows the full story, and advocates can always latch on to some bizarre statistic, like “More people have been killed by cordless drills installing solar panels per gigawatt hour than have ever died from electric generation with nuclear power.”

acidburnNSA 4y ago

I hope we're measuring and disseminating dose rate and dose rate hazard information these days. I hate that I ctrl-f these kinds of articles for mSv (measure of radioactive dose) and never find it. The reactor type they were testing there is actually super interesting. It was a liquid metal cooled reactor (LMR) with slow neutrons. We have made lots of fast-neutron LMRs, but only a tiny handful of slow-neutron LMRs. They're interesting because they get the neutronics efficiencies of slow neutrons (e.g. they can start up and operate with very low enriched uranium) while also getting the benefits of cooling with liquid metal (low-pressure passive safety, high temperature heat, low corrosion, single phase flow). It's my favorite reactor type actually. The SRE in LA was the prototype for the Hallam reactor in Nebraska. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Nuclear_Power_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallam_Nuclear_Power_Facility

ncmncm 4y ago
I.e., we already have seen entirely enough of them.

doyouevensunbro 4y ago

I live near here. They have built housing on top of the waste drainage area. We tried to protest but it did no good. They say they trucked out the rest of the waste but no one really believes it.

ncmncm 4y ago

This event, and everything around SS, was just par for the nuke industry. Forbidding staff from warning their families about contamination was typical evil. There is never any expectation that any nuke project will do better, absent strict regulation and rigorous enforcement. It is why the public is very sensibly sour on nukes. But the only thing stopping more of it, today, is that they cost way more than alternatives. Always did, but it is harder now to paper over.

pdonis 4y ago
> the nuke industry This wasn't "the nuke industry". It was a government testing lab. No member of the public has been harmed by actual commercial nuclear power plants. All of the dicey stuff (and there was a lot more of it than just this) was done by the government. > There is never any expectation that any nuke project will do better, absent strict regulation and rigorous enforcement So you want the government that set this testing lab up to do the regulation and enforcement?
- morsch 4y ago
  Debatable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident_health_effects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident_h...
  - shakow 4y ago
    Have you read the article you post? Virtually no-one was able to find a statistically relevant affect on health in then neighbouring population. > The American Nuclear Society concluded that average local radiation exposure was equivalent to a chest X-ray and maximum local exposure equivalent to less than a year's background radiation. > the study found no link between fallout and cancer risk > "no consistent evidence" of causation by TMI > found rates as expected in the county in which the reactor is located
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Anyway the American Nuclear Society was not "able". No one seemed interested in the experience of people living near the river, gassed by the volume of radioactive krypton gas "vented" that (being much denser than air) poured down and spread out over the river banks.

Animats 4y ago

Well-known event.[1] Some release of Kr-85 (half life 11 years) and Xe-133 (half life 5 days.) It's been 62 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_Reactor_Experiment