Military Toxins

Avila Beach Nuclear Power Plant

Building the most powerful military force in human history has profoundly affected American culture, morality and politics.

This unprecedented investment in building missiles, bombs, jets, bullets, rockets, submarines, ships, satellites, bombers, guns and nuclear arms has also profoundly affected the American landscape and environment. The Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges that the Defense Department is the nation’s leading polluter.

Indeed, the health of millions are at risk. Over the past twenty years, millions of Californians have consumed water tainted with rocket fuel. During the Cold War, millions of American children were fed radioactive milk, contaminated by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Many thousands of military workers got cancer from dealing with exotic chemicals and radioactive materials – and nearby communities were similarly exposed.

Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles believes that the military’s historic mission— that of protecting Americans from harm— clearly extends to protecting Americans from the military’s own environmental mess.

Los Angeles’ Unique Role

Los Angeles is one of the nation’s foremost military regions. Weapons are regularly shipped from Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station to Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. Marines depart from Camp Pendleton. Intercontinental ballistic missiles are built in Canoga Park, their engines tested in our foothills, and test-launched from Vandenberg AFB.

The missile defense program and a majority of our nation’s military satellites are manufactured in the greater LA area. Despite the presence of this influential industry in our midst, the economic, environmental and moral implications of local military activities are largely ignored.

Southern California’s health and environment has been profoundly transformed by military activity. Did you know that the entire San Gabriel Valley is an EPA Superfund site – and the eastern half of the San Fernando Valley is similarly a Superfund site due to military pollution?

Current major military sites in Southern California. There are literally hundreds of smaller military contractors working in the region, and many hundreds more sites now abandoned with their own environmental problems.

Accomplishments

2009/2008

• PSR-LA helps achieve a monumental victory regarding the highly contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory (Rocketdyne). Working with Committee to Bridge the Gap, Sierra Club, and community members, PSR-LA helped secure legislation for Rocketydyne’s polluted soil and groundwater to be remediated to the strictest Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund standards with state oversight.

2006

• Shining a light on the region’s little-known military pollution, PSR-LA hosts the first-ever military toxin tour of Southern California. PSR-LA also commissioned and released a study on the military-toxin, trichloroethylene, which identified 114 contaminated sites in Los Angeles.

2003

• PSR-LA provides leadership in the fight for Ahmanson Ranch, a 3,050-home development planned on contaminated land next to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Pollution revelations sink a $2 billion project which is sold to State of California for $150 million. No park purchase in Ventura or Los Angeles counties has been larger in land area or expense.

2002

• PSR-LA plays a crucial role in uncovering contamination at the Aerojet-Chino Hills that was the target of housing development plans. The 800-acre lab, polluted with depleted uranium, perchlorate and unexploded ordnance, is now undergoing a cleanup costing over $23 million under the direction of Cal-EPA’s Department of Toxics Substances Control.