NASA is clapping back at California over a cleanup plan to remove heavy metals, volatile organic chemicals, and other contaminants from a Simi Valley site once used to test rockets and research nuclear energy.
Cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory is too expensive, will take too long, and is too stringent, according to a National Aeronautics and Space Agency inspector general report released March 19.
In the report, NASA said it agreed in 2010 to clean soil to background levels—what would occur naturally. But the agency now wants to aim for less-stringent standards, the kind reserved for ...