Community Activist Jay Kapitz is asking you for help lobbying the Federal Government over Rocketdyne. Jay has been a frequent supporter of this blog over the years by posting comments, writing guest blog entries when he went to DC for the inauguration, and keeping me informed over local grassroots politics.

Here is his latest guest blog entry:

Rocketdyne Clean Up Is a done issue
By Jay Kapitz

There is a very serious situation that affects my community of Oak Park in Ventura County.

The Santa Susana Field Laboratory, currently owned by the Boeing Company, is located approximately five miles from Oak Park. A partial nuclear meltdown, thousands of rocket tests and decades of nuclear reactor development have left radioactive and chemical contamination at the site.

Click on continue reading for the rest of his guest blog entry.

Follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/dennert

I sometimes post stories there that I don't post here.

( Check out The Radiation Rangers on YouTube. I am not a marketing professional but something tells me that super hero uniforms might be needed to capture the attention of the public more.)

To the consternation of the Simi Valley Radiation Rangers the proposed project at Runkle Canyon, pejoratively named Runkledyne by critics, is coming closer to getting final approval. I wonder if the economic slow down will do more to delay the project than all of the recent hearings, meetings, and tests have done.

Local investigative environmental reporter Michael Collins isn't satisfied and continues to insist the project is unsafe and that the process of testing for unsafe chemicals has been riddled with errors.

Here is a quote from a recent article that appeared in the Ventura County Reporter:

Hirsch then zeroed in on Dade Moeller's radiation plan and on the controversial company itself, whose namesake testified back in the 1990s that money spent on cleaning up Cold War-era nuclear facilities was being wasted since there would be a cure for cancer.

Click here for the article printed in the Ventura County Reporter.

Click here for the EnviroReporter website.

Click here for the developer's Runkle Canyon website. Their website has a FAQ covering environmental safety, traffic, and a list of some of the prominent local charities they have supported.

Click here for the blogger Mike Chandler's aggressive defense of the Simi Valley City Council on this issue.

Click here for the Radiation Ranger's website.

Click here for the City of Simi Valley's website devoted to this development.

Before voting check out some of the links above. You can vote for as many as you want.

Check out this new video about the proposed development nicknamed by opponents as Runkledyne.

With such an important issue are any of the groups opposed to the development getting involved in local elections? If incumbents are being responsive they should be supported and if they are not they should be challenged for it.

So, how have the current city leaders worked with you? What about other local elected officials.

I respect Barbra Williamson for agreeing to talk, on camera, about an issue that is seen as being politically toxic.

Click here for more information from enviroreporter.com.

Click here to see the "Runkledyne" website.

Click runklecanyon.com to see the website of the developer.

Local filmmaker Brigham Maher has posted his collection of interviews about Rocketdyne on youtube.

Will you do me a favor? Please watch a clip or two and leave some feedback here for him. Remember, you don't need to use your real name or email address and you don't need to register.

Here is the intro:

If you go to his youtube account you can see the rest of the film.

The expansion of religious and political freedom has expanded greatly in the last few decades. I hope that it continues to extend in my lifetime.I haven't watched the whole film yet and I am not endorsing its views. But I am supporting his right to free expression.There are many ideas Brigham goes over in this film that in the old USSR would have had him sent to the gulag.

Speaking of Gulag's an author that changed my worldview just passed away. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn author of the The Gulag Archipelago. His life work and views of the West give all of us something to be uncomfortable with and something to be in awe of at the same time. May he not be forgotten.

The facts he made me confront forced me to understand what I already knew. We should doubt all tyrants and be watchful when they start us down a path we already know. At the same time he reminds us to have faith in God and not imperfect human creations.

Honor his memory by reading through his biography.

( A video from Sheila Kuehl on the clean up efforts)

Senate Bill 990 by Sheila Kuehl would require clean up of the former Rocketdyne Santa Susan Field Lab to higher EPA standards instead of DOE standards.

The Simi Valley City Council a few weeks back signed a letter in support of the legislation that is now winding its way through the assembly.

In the state senate Tom McClintock ( AKA Mr. No) voted against it. If Tom McClintock has a problem with this bill I encourage him to speak out or introduce his own legislation. Simply voting no isn't enough on a critical issue like this one. I searched for statements from McClintock but haven't seen anything. If you see something please post it. But as it goes so far on this issue Simi Valley is represented by Sheila Kuehl being that she has been holding town hall forums and putting together youtube videos to discuss the issue.

On the assembly side there was a vote in committee on the issue but local Assembly member Smyth was either not present or abstained, I am not sure which. If you know Smyth's opinion on this one please chime in.

Here is a documentary from The History Channel about Rocketdyne. Some people think it only impacts The Knolls, but the pollution is thought to be in the groundwater of the floor of our valley.

If you are a part of any Boeing/Rocketdyne activist group, please post any information about upcoming meetings or events. Also, when you leave a message in the box that says URL put a link back to your website.

( This photoshop was created by a reader Brian Mack to focus on Peter Foy's ballot designation as a farmer. I wish Peter Foy luck as he tries to pass his reforms. We will be watching him and helping when we see needed changes get sidetracked. )

Peter Foy has taken office. Here is one article from The Ventura County Star about it.

The article fleshes out his term limits platform to 3 consecutive terms. After that a supervisor must return to private life, although they could run again after a term out of office.

It doesn't mention his package of ethics reforms. We should all help him by suggesting new ideas for ethical reform. What reforms would you like to see?

I will forward his team the suggestions after a few weeks so that everyone has time to think of ideas our community needs.

There is a complicated and important story in the extended comments about Rocketdyne in Simi Valley.

In the last few weeks they have paid millions to people of the area that they have made ill.

Now, they have are asking to continue to pollute for just a few more months.

If this toxic brew every ends up becoming a massive scandal costing the local areas millions of dollars and unmeasureable human suffering...

Can we please vote out every politician from the top to the bottom for ignoring this issue?