Ventura County unanimously approves tolling agreement over Santa Susana Laboratory site

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. – Earlier this month, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a tolling agreement over the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Clean-Up Project.

Parties to the legal agreement, signed on Jan. 9, 2024, include the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, The Boeing Company, the United States on behalf of the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the City of Los Angeles, the City of Simi Valley, the County of Los Angeles, and the County of Ventura.

The tolling agreement details and extends the deadline for filing lawsuits challenging the Programmatic Environmental Impact Report as part of the clean-up efforts which was certified by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control on July 19 of 2023.

Under the terms of the agreement, the limitations period for filing those lawsuits does not begin until 120 days after the California Department of Toxic Substances Control approved the primary Clean-up Plans detailed in Attachment A.

According to the County of Ventura, this allows time for the assessment of the Clean-up Plans and the time extension applies to all potential lawsuits, including those filed by individuals and organizations who are not parties to the tolling agreement.

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory is approximately 2,850 acres in the southeast corner of Ventura County and, from the 1940s until 2006, was used for industrial research and testing in support of federal programs explain the County of Ventura.

Testing and research conducted at facilities on site included rocket engine and fuel testing, liquid metals research as well as development and testing of nuclear reactors detail the agreement.

According to the County of Ventura, the Simi Hills site was "significantly contaminated" by those research activities, and the County is now monitoring the cleanup supervised by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and being conducted by The Boeing Company, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

For the latest information about the clean-up project from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, visit here.