Down the Test Tubes

KB Home’s Runkle Canyon radiation tests have been questioned as more groundwater pollution is found and developer KB Home negotiates a cleanup agreement with state. (See “Down the Test Tubes.”)

KB Home’s lab Dade Moeller & Associates has produced a 10-page report that shows strontium-90 radiation only a quarter of “background” for the area, and a fraction of previous sampling results. The report, regarding samples obtained October, 2007, includes no lab analysis.

Also puzzling, Simi Valley’s “split-samples,” to double-check KB Home’s tests for accuracy, came in over a hundred times less than previous samplings. Their lab’s radiation testing procedures include the controversial decanting and filtering.

In response, Rev. John Southwick and the Radiation Rangers sent a letter to City of Simi Valley on January 7 demanding full strontium-90 test results. The City provided Southwick KB Home’s sampling plans.

In related news:

* DTSC is in negotiations with KB Home for a Runkle Voluntary Cleanup Agreement with costs to be paid by developer.

* KB Home’s Runkle Canyon project head has been replaced.

* Cancerous trichloroethylene (TCE) was found in Runkle groundwater by Boeing in December 2007 test results for Department of Toxic Substances Control. TCE vapor danger helped sink the Ahmanson Ranch development in 2003.

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