Burro Flats
The worst nuclear accident in U.S. history had once taken
place just up the road from the house we bought. Along with the square footage and number of
bedrooms, you would think the seller or the real estate agent might have at
least mentioned this in passing. It
wasn’t the first time we had bought a house so we knew enough to check the
appliances, the water pressure and the HOA fees; but it never occurred to us to
bring along a Geiger counter. If you
were unfamiliar with Simi Valley you’d have no way of knowing that Rocketdyne
spent decades perched atop a hill above the valley having a go at mother
nature.
Santa Susana Field Lab photo by U.S. Department of Energy.
In 1947 the U.S. Government chose the top of one of the Simi Hills to
build the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) where the development and
testing of rocket engines and nuclear reactors could be carried out. The location that may have seemed somewhat
remote at the time now has more than 150,000 people living within five
miles. The facility remains out of sight,
far above any vantage point, and unless you fly over it there is no way to view
it. When I first saw aerial photos of
the lab, it brought to mind Machu Picchu. Both were sites where two cultures, although hundreds of years apart, sought
a lofty refuge to research the most advanced technology of the day.
Photo from travel-photographer.net
The Santa Susana Field Lab site consists of 2,850 acres. When in operation, the lab field ran a total
of ten small nuclear reactors of which at least four are known to have had
serious accidents. These reactors were experimental
designs that were erected without a containment dome. A “near” meltdown in 1959 is estimated to
have resulted in 300 cancer deaths and a release of 450 times greater
radioactivity than the Three-Mile Island accident. Boeing, NASA and the Department of Energy are
currently on the hook for cleaning up the massive contamination but between the
local residents, government agencies, politicians and lawyers; it appears to be
too complex to be resolved anytime soon.
In addition to four known nuclear accidents, several major fires and
spills of liquid rocket propellants, there was also considerable burning and
dumping of an unaccounted for quantity of toxic materials. The Ventura
County Star interviewed James Palmer who worked on a lab field crew burning
radioactive and chemically contaminated material in an open air pit. Palmer indicated that twenty-two of his
twenty-seven fellow crew members have died of cancer. All the wells in the area have long been
contaminated and runoff from the site sends toxins cascading down off the hills
into the headwaters of the Los Angeles River.
If you live in Frogtown, or anywhere along side the Los Angeles River,
go out the back door tomorrow morning before rush hour fills the basin with car
exhaust, and treat yourself to a good whiff of strontium-90.
The lab field site in the past, and most certainly now, is not
accessible to the public with one exception.
Descendants of Chumash Indians have been permitted to visit a cave on
the site that has pictographs estimated to be 500 to 1,000 years old. On the first day of winter a shaft of light
coming into the cave illuminates a painted symbol with concentric circles. This has led archaeologists to theorize that
the cave was used to mark or celebrate the winter solstice. The cave is located in the northwest portion
of the lab field and is known as the Burro Flats Painted Cave. It was added to the National Register of
Historic Places in 1976. The land is to become a park when the
cleanup is complete, which at the current rate may take another 500 to 1,000
years.
Photo by Christina Walsh.
Due to the location of the cave and the restricted access over the years,
the pictographs in the cave remain the only ones in California that have not
been desecrated. Boeing is the most
recent owner of the 450 acres that make up the portion of the lab field where
the cave is located. The exact location
is not made public and does not appear on any of Boeing’s company maps in order
to preserve the cave painting.
The latest development related to the cave involves a bid from the Santa
Ynez Chumash tribe to purchase the land from Boeing. It is conceivable that the transfer of the
land would release Boeing from its clean up responsibility and the Chumash
could in turn assert their Native
American sovereignty rights to avoid it as well. In addition, no one has as of yet ruled out
the possibility of a casino.
In 1947 the Brandeis-Bardin Institute purchased 2,200 acres
in the foothills of Simi Valley unaware of what the government plans were for
the neighboring property. The
Brandeis-Bardin campus is situated down the hill from the lab field. In the 1990s the Institute took Rocketdyne to
court and presented alarming evidence indicating the runoff from Rocketdyne’s
activities had resulted in soil and water contamination. Rocketdyne chose to settle out of court for
an undisclosed sum. Rocketdyne pursued a
similar course when residents further down the hill from the Institute filed a
class action suit. Rocketdyne settled
the suit by paying thirty million dollars.
Our justice system proved to be quite baffling once again with the
plaintiff’s legal team receiving $18,000,000 and each resident that was still
alive, receiving $30,000.
The Brandeis-Bardin Institute campus added an unusual
structure in 1973. The House Of The Book
was designed by Sidney Eisenshtat and has been featured in a Star Trek episode and served as the
headquarters for the Morphin Power
Rangers.
Photo from Jewish American University.
From the interior of the building one can view stained glass windows
created by Jerry Novorr.
Photo from American Jewish University.
When I saw the stained glass design shown above, I couldn’t help but
notice that despite being created many centuries apart, both the window and the
Burro Flats cave painting include a symbol made with concentric circles. It seems logical that artists and shamans
from long ago looked to the natural world for shapes and symbols. However, other than the sun and the moon, it
seems to me that perfect circles are rarely present in the natural world. Finding a source of inspiration for
concentric circles would be even more difficult. I wondered how a symbol with concentric
circles first came about. Granted, the iris
and pupil of the human eye are concentric circles but eyes are almost always
represented within an outline shaped as a horizontal oval and pointed on the
ends.
Painting a single nice round circle can be difficult. Hence the myth that the Italian artist Giotto in the fifteenth century was chosen as an apprentice purely based on a demonstration
of his ability to draw a perfect circle freehanded. Could a symbol with concentric circles simply
be the result of repeated, overlapping attempts to draw a single circle? Perhaps, but for this symbol to become so
prominent in ancient cultures from all over the globe, it must represent
something more meaningful than trial and error.
I eventually was able to think of one example of concentric circles in
the physical world – the ripples that emanate from the center of a pond into which a
pebble has been dropped. Isn’t that a
universal observation made by every child even before they can speak? Without any discussion needed, doesn’t every human having seen this immediately grasp and internalize at a subconscious level the knowledge that
released energy expands at a uniform rate in all directions? It certainly makes a containment dome seem
like a good idea.
