Hotsheets and Hot Times News

Perchlorate Discovered in Simi Drinking Water Wells

Perchlorate's Spread can't be Verified: EPA May Not Designate Santa Susana Field Lab as 'Superfund' Site as there are no Residents and Agency States there must be a Discoverd Threat to Drinking Water Supplies in order that it take Action. Please see 19 March 2004 posting here for more information.

Perchlorate Information Withheld, Suit Alleges

Perchlorate Limits May Ease Rocketdyne-Boeing Santa Susana Field Lab's Cleanup Please scroll down and read the 19 March 2004 page for further information.

The California Department of Toxic Substance Control says they have found more perchlorate in the groundwater at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Lab, but more tests are needed in order to determine whether the rocket fuel contamination discovered offsite is coming from the hilltop lab. Additional information about the 24 March 2004 public meeting regarding this matter is available via the previous day's post, (19 March 2004), as well as by linking to the site listed above .

Rocketdyne Contamination: Update; Meeting 24 March, 2004 at the Simi Cultural Arts Center, (The Former Huber Mortuary, Temple Ner Tamid, and Methodist Church and Schoolgrounds), 3050 Los Angeles Avenue, Simi, CA, beginning 6:30 p.m. until 10:00. The Santa Susana Field Laboratory Cleanup Monitoring Group and EPA present their current information regarding SSFL radioactive contaminants and hazard level of site. I will not attend this meeting nor will I attend any future ones presented by the workgoup. I was never notified about their secret workings as nobody ever mailed me a flyer or told me about the contamination and the fact that not only was there contamination, but that Boeing and individuals were monitoring cleanup of same. I began publishing about the carcinogenic exposures directly related to the Boeing-Rocketdyne sites the instant I discovered the facts and on the very same day I published my first edition and posted it at grocery stores, post offices, and laundromats among other highly public venues. Cesium-137 contamination coupled with Strontium-90, enriched uranium, and perchlorate, etcetera, equals implosive, (nuclear), heat. Thus began the publishing of Hot Sheets: Hot Times , during March, 1997. My *Hotsheets newspaper has a vast amount of information regarding the Rocketdyne-Boeing nuclear, hazardous wastes, and toxic contamination of the site and neighboring communites and many pertinent research documents are available onsite. A personal observation is that my father's funeral was held here when it was Huber's location, and since he was a great musician, it is interesting to me that the site is now a Cultural Arts Center, albeit developed far too late.

The greatest education I ever received outside of my home and that which I received from my parents and Grandmother, was within the Riverside County School District and the Riverside County Library System and Museums. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I began studying biographies of scientists and history at the Riverside Public Library which is where I spent each and every day after school until 9:00 p.m. when it closed. My eldest brother and I spent weekends there as well along with my two eldest sisters. We were allowed to check out only 7 books each per week so we each read the others' books as well and it still wasn't enough reading material, so we spent our afterschool hours reading other things while we were inside the library. One of my greatest teachers, Mrs. Vivian Pace, whom I was blessed to have as my instructor for two years, also gave me books as gifts, and when I moved to Simi, she would mail me books and reading materials as well. I never thought about money or the lack of it because we had books, art, and music as a constant presence in our family life at home as well as a lot of exercise. My mother and Grandmother never drove a car: We walked everywhere, altogether, single file throughout the years within rural and incorporated Riverside. We walked to Riverside's Memorial Hall every day during the summer in order to swim until 9:00 p.m. when it closed. March, march, march, swim and swim some more, eat and read.

Hardbound copies of 'The Ninth Wave' sat on our bookshelf at home along with my mother's drawing texts and medical books from her art and medical classes. I read through those books several times during my childhood and did not understand much of the material until years later, but I still remember Van Doren's opening chapter wherein a surfer sits upon his longboard eating his bagged lunch while waiting for the perfect wave and the distinct difference between it and the absolute military atrocities which were included in the Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust.

Many times my sister and I entertained ourselves by reading my mother's medical texts and looking at all the pictured medical conditions in addition to the special unit of anatomy pages which included entire inserts of illustrated organs, intestines, skeletal, muscular, and blood systems. I read about Louis Pasteur and Pasteurization processing of milk and asepsis when I was in the first grade as well as the fact that for many years, medical doctors who practiced washing their hands because they believed that infections were caused by germ contagion were known as 'heretics', and I thus became hooked on science and biography. Next came the biography and works of Madame Curie and I'll never forget how shocked and saddened I became when I learned she died of leukemia and her daughter was stricken with cancer as well.
I researched and studied nuclear energy thoroughly when I was a child because I was a native Californian and my father drilled water wells for areas that had no supply and no development, and no electrical power. I spent a great deal of time in areas where there was no electricity, and thus, spent a lot of time in the wonderful Riverside Public Library in order that I could read in its light. I became thrilled about the prospect of nuclear power because it seemed to be the perfect answer to California's desert communities' needs and it would be clean, efficient, and inexpensive to my child mind.

I was so blessed as a child to have Mrs. Pace as a teacher for two entire school years; she was also an artist, and musician who would bring me different instruments to play including a mandolin, castanets, violin, clarinet, guitar and zither among many other instruments. One year, during the fall while I was attending Mrs. Pace's classes, my Great Aunt Edith Bragg Powell, had a visitor from another state and she brought the young man to our house on Limonite Avenue in Riverside because he was interested in old blues and jazz recordings. My Great Aunt brought him to our house as she wanted my father to play some songs and records for him as well as give him musicianship tips. He visited a long time with my father and came back again before he went back home. He liked some of my art work I had done for my teacher which were all in black and white, and to my surprise, one day when I went to school, Mrs. Pace gave me a beautiful box of watercolors and colored chalks which were placed in her care to give to me by the young man as a farewell gift to encourage me to submit my art for the Veterans' Day Memorial poster competition. The artwork I had done was very dark black on white butcher paper, rolled out to about three feet long, and had very dark clouds and heavy shadows on the crosses I had drawn from sight when seeing them when I visited the Arlington Memorial Cemetery located at Riverside. I can't tell you who this young man is now because he became extremely famous, but I remember him from my childhood and he was a lot of fun and spent a great deal of time entertaining me but, at the time he was learning a lot about music from my father. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Cordero, was also a violinist and the West Riverside/Pedley school district was truly visionary as during her class, we had closed circuit television providing Spanish language lessons every morning. Thank you California Governor Pat Brown. We also had academic summer school by choice and all we Felkins' kids went every year: We loved to learn.

More women in my immediate family were World War II Veterans than were the men in our household. Both my mother and grandmother served the United States Army as Medics and my father was Wire Chief and Sargeant for the 3117 Signal Batallion, Pacific Theater of Operations. There was absolutely no sexism in our household: The girls learned to lay brick and blow sax right along with the boys. I learned far more than I ever cared to about human physiology, hygiene, and medicine from my mother and grandmother. Sad to note the fact here that not only was there no magnificent museum located in Simi when we moved there, but, there was also NO library. There was a County of Ventura Bookmobile which visited the area once a month and parked at the Thrifty Mart grocery store parking lot at First Street and Los Angeles Avenue at the west end of Simi, but it had very few books and nothing for me. Later, a library was created in a small private home which was donated to the community which was also at First Street at the west end of town. I was still collecting my own library at this time thanks to Mrs. Pace and books purchased with baby-sitting monies. I will always be grateful to the late Mrs. Sylvia Shannon, who gave me an entire set of Funk & Wagnall's encyclopaedias and I thoroughly read every volume in the entire set. It was also this wonderful woman who gave our family a piano while my father was still alive. It was an amazing instrument which opened the door for me to meet the incredible musician who became my piano instructor, the late Dr. Jean Osborne; she also taught music at Moorpark College. Dr. Osborne had an infinite repetoire and she could play anything set before her at a 'cold' reading which means that she had never performed the piece prior to having it set before her; she then would perform the piece with perfect precision including perfect execution of all ornamentation and trills. It didn't matter whether the piece was composed by George Gershwin, Chopin, Bartok, Beethoven, Thelonious Monk, Bach, or any other composer; Jean played everything as an incomparable artist and my life is truly blessed by her absolute musicianship as well as the fact that she was my teacher. She now is with me every day, whenever I am at the piano or strings as is my father, because although both have died, their artistry and music lives and is always with me.

Mrs. Shannon was a staunch supporter and advocate of the Civil Rights movement and I will always remember her for her focus on equality and the Civil Rights Act: She and her husband Floyd, as well as her daughter Patti, were the handful of people I knew in the area who remained steadfast in their positions during the years of social upheaval and political unrest when to support 'The Act', as did both my parents, was not a popular position at the time, and especially unpopular in Simi. I was a kid growing up in Simi after having moved from a highly developed old town area with wonderful schools, libraries, museums, community swimming pools, and numerous parks and activities for families and children. I warn anyone who may be thinking of writing me to tell me that the area was not racist to stop right now. I know better. I grew up there and I tell you right now that the first time I ever heard a racist slur was when I was in the sixth grade and the remark was made by an adult neighbor to me when I walked home from school in Simi. During 1973, while I was waiting tables to help with my college expenses, this same neighbor came and sat in my station and I had to wait on him all night long until he got too drunk and his friends took him home, however, not before he screamed the same remark at me while he went out the door, and he yelled the same thing about my mother. He had power: Money, alcohol, and bigotry. I was not impressed. I was not intimidated. My boss thought the whole episode was hilarious. Another longtime resident brought in a black blow up doll and made it perform crude acts on one of my tables in my waitress station. My boss also thought that was funny. I waited on a lot of people in Simi and I certainly received an education about human behavior by waiting on tables. I also worked at the TG & Y store on Alamo Street in Santa Susana during my 10th, 11th, and senior years as a student at Simi High and I learned a lot about the public during those years I spent in the retail business. I have a vivid memory of almost every single day of my life and every single ugly thing that I was ever subjected to by adults and others while residing in Simi, so don't try to tell me anything different. I know better and I know who you are and I know where I have been and I know the difference between grace and ugly because my background was strong and filled with my parents and cushioned by the grace of Sylvia Shannon, Vivian Pace, and others such as James Steele who was my Simi High Adult History instructor. My life was enriched by his class because he taught history I knew: World/American/Military history and The Civil Rights Act. I worked for, and received my first degree in English Literature because I wanted to write about history, medicine, science, the arts, and my personal perspective as a Native American and Daughter of the American Revolution among other things. Yes, I studied Latin and Greek, and yes, it does make a difference.

Within weeks after moving north to Ventura County, I turned in a report for my new teacher, Mr. Drever, at my new school located in Simi, which was a lengthy, positive, enthusiastic, and meticulously researched report about nuclear power. Ironic is the fact that close to my home, unbeknownst to my sixth grade self due to naivete and ignorance, was a secret nuclear power plant, contracted by the Department of Energy, which was dangerously produced in secret by Rocketdyne. The exposure from meltdowns, spills, accidents, and releases at the site has made many of the children with whom I grew up during the heaviest years of production and testing at the site, very ill. None of us were ever notified about the lethal carcinogens to which we were exposed during the heaviest years of testing at the site as well as its being the greatest amount of years of testing and production at Rocketdyne facilities which were working 24 hours a day with three different work crew shifts. Many of the children with whom I grew up with and attended schools within the contamination area have died of cancers. Some died as early as junior high school of leukemia, and some died in their early twenties. More are sick and dying now.

I was a naive child when I researched and wrote that report for Mr. Drever. I knew nothing about greed, racism, lack of adult accountability, sloppiness, carelessness, or the absolute quest by adults for power through monetary success at all costs including threat to community health and loss of human life and poisoned environment.

I did know through research, however, that radiation poisoning caused leukemias and cancers as exampled by the death of Madame Curie among others. Literature available during my childhood via my eldest brother Mike, such as 'On the Beach' and 'Exodus' contained bibliographies which listed further research materials easily discovered throughout the Veterans' Administration Hospital library reference systems where my mother worked, such as Nuremberg Trial materials, and transcripts, in addition to innumerable medical, military, science journals and publications.

I was a little girl when Red Skelton's son died of leukemia and at the time, the only other person I ever knew about whom also had leukemia and died from it was Madame Curie. A few years later, after having moved to Simi, a good friend and classmate of mine got leukemia and died from it while we attended junior high school, oddly enough at the same time my teacher's young daughter died from it while one of my classmates who attended this same teacher's typing class was diagnosed with multiple brain tumors during this same school year as well. Since that time, many of my childhood classmates and friends have died of leukemias, lymphomas, digestive and organ cancers.

As a child I believed all adults were artists and musicians and all of them were careful, compassionate, generous, creative and productive Veterans. I was a child surrounded by Veterans who were musicians and artists. I thought everybody had a saxophone, bass, drums, and countless records at home. I thought everybody had medical, history, and art books at home because their parents had gone to school on the G.I. Bill. Everybody's father was building a surfboard in the garage and came home from work everyday and blew sax to Music Minus One Records and knew unknown hundreds of big band tunes by memory and taught them to their children as did mine. Everybody knew what a precious commodity water is to Southern California because everybody knows it is a desert, and life here is very, very, hard without it. As I wrote previously, I was a child with a child's mind.

I will never forget how shocked I was the first time I visited someone and there were no musical instruments. Then another shock when I visited someone and the only books there were for homework, and worse shock still when a parent addressed a friend and demanded they 'clean up' the mess in their room because they had a book on the floor, which by the way, was the only book in the house. How does one read a book that is locked away or worse yet, non existent? I am not talking about poor people. I am talking about people whose children had more new junky toys than I had ever seen in my life. The parents had more junky new stuff than I had ever seen. I began to feel guilty when I got high grades on my tests and some of my friends did not. I also apologized because I could read music.

Imagine my great shock and horror when I discovered that my Simi and Santa Susana homes were located within a 'hot zone' and that I had been living within it for almost four decades while the areas which wherein I worked and attended schools from childhood located in Simi, Santa Susana, Chatsworth, Canoga Park, Reseda, Box Canyon and Northridge, etcetera, were also contaminated.

I did write within the report I submitted to Mr. Drever about the fact that nuclear fallout and an exposure to a tiny amout of powerful nuclear materials could kill many by radiation poisoning, but this wasn't a worry to me because all adults were careful and would never hurt anyone with plutonium or radiation. I was a dumb kid with great faith in conscientious adults. As an adult, I know far different about adult behavior and how much individuals are willing to sacrifice for money, including an entire community's health, and this production at all costs, including loss of human life, is exactly why I began to publish the 'Hotsheets' the very day and instant I discovered the contamination, its properties, and the injuries, cancers, lymphomas, deaths, and illnesses directly linked to radioactive activities and materials, moreover, in addition to the carcinogenic chemical contamination discovered from Rocketdyne-Boeing Santa Susana Field Laboratory and facilities.

I am appalled that I was never notified about the Boeing-Rocketdyne contamination by the companies nor by local legislators, officials, or their acting representatives. Since I had never been notified, the fact instantly occurred to me that none of the children with whom I grew up were notified nor were their parents, siblings, friends, or spouses who were also long time residents of the area who may have moved from the area during earlier years or after the earthquake of 1994. Thus, I publish in order that as many former long time residents of the contamination area(s) may have the facts about the radiation, toxins, and hazardous wastes to which they and their families were exposed during many years inasmuch as the information has been withheld from them as well as it was from me. I know how shocked I was when I discovered the contamination in addition to the fact that the information was withheld by the deliberate failure to notify and I want to be sure that the long time residents have this important information available on a daily basis because information which may be gleaned through a single newspaper article may not be read on the specific publish day; since each newsprint edition is different than the prior day's publication, it is very easy to miss an important article regarding Rocketdyne-Boeing contaminant exposure. If one is ill or does not read the paper, or does not have access to it because the home is in an isolated area or in another state, etcetera, then one remains unaware of the decades of meltdowns, releases, spills, accidents, radionuclides, and contaminants one has been exposed to from the site, and the fact that the exposure is directly related to cancers, injuries, illnesses, leukemias, and lymphomas. Justice must be served and there must be compensation for all of the injured individuals: People have died and many more are ill and have had their lives shattered by illnesses and the marked deprivation and undue hardship caused by longterm and/or chronic, painful diseases and disabilities in addition to the trauma caused by the contamination related deaths, injuries, and illnesses of loved ones and family members.