We were hoping to meet Secretary Rick Perry, head of the federal Department of Energy (DOE), when we went to Washington DC earlier this year. We wanted to ask why the DOE hadn’t cleaned America’s worst nuclear meltdown, the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL). Mr. Perry was unavailable. Ann White, his second in command, flat out refused us even though we had a meeting scheduled with her and her staff.
And he did. Sort of.
Last Friday Mr. Perry came for a tour of the SSFL site. But instead addressing the community like he promised, he didn’t invite any community members to attend the tour at all. He didn’t even allow the press to come.
Congresswoman Julia Brownely was one of eight Congress Members, in addition to Senator Feinstein, who sent a strongly worded letter to the Department of Energy’s Rick Perry, as well as NASA and CalEPA in July 2019. In the letter, Perry was admonished by his superiors;
“We are deeply concerned that this required cleanup has not been completed...These agreements, which were supported by the state and the local community, were entered into in good faith and its completely unacceptable that DOE and NASA are refusing to comply with these [AOC] clean-up agreements.”
I would imagine that if Perry wanted to show his commitment to the cleanup, he would have arranged his tour of the site to accommodate all of the congress members who wrote to him two months before. Rep. Brownley, who initiated the letter, “ would have made it a priority to attend (Perry's tour) had she been given the courtesy of an invitation."
Rep. Sherman, who also signed the Congressional letter, wrote in his press release, “I would have preferred that Secretary Perry would have visited the site at a time I could have accompanied him, and we offered many possible dates.”
Congress Members Katie Hill and Adam Schiff were also left out. Considering that Representatives Brownley, Schiff and Hill, who signed the strong letter asking Rick Perry for accountability were not even invited, I really can’t help but feel like his visit was an intentional insult. To them and to our community.
The mayor of Simi Valley was invited, but seven of the eight congress members who wrote the letter were not. To me, that’s a big indicator that this was just a political ploy.
Perry’s visit made it seem like he was dedicated to the cleanup but no significant action was taken during his visit. That exactly mirrors the DOE’s attitude towards the cleanup over the last decade. Lots of promises. No significant actions.
Thankfully we have strong leaders at every level of California government who are determined to get us the cleanup we so desperately need.
And so we continue to march forward.
(By the way, we're really close to reaching 700,000 signatures on our petition! Would you please forward this email to a friend who cares about the environment and who also hates kids getting cancer? Hopefully they'll sign and join our cause! Thank you!)
* Photo courtesy of Ventura County Star Newspaper