Dump rejects field lab soil

The largest toxic waste facility in the West has rejected a proposal by Boeing Co. and NASA to accept tainted soil from the site of a partial nuclear meltdown. Daily News.

Chemical Waste Management, which operates the San Joaquin dump, sent a letter Tuesday to Linda Adams, head of the state Environmental Protection Agency, saying the facility would not accept the hazardous waste "because of the uncertainty and community concerns about levels of radioactive constituents in these materials."

The dump just outside the tiny farming town of Kettleman City, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is not licensed to accept radioactive waste. The dirt was dug up as part of a cleanup effort at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles where thousands of rockets were tested and a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor took place in 1959.