@HistoPol @mina @si_irini @evelynefoerster

The fight has been fought.

A local resident, mother of a girl who contracted leukemia twice in her first 9 years, gathered 750,000 petitions for the government to clean up the site.

The result - you can guess...

The Beads of Courage 9min video is about her fight.

It is based on the documentary In the Dark Valley (2021).

https://youtu.be/oH8BilL6H1Q

#SantaSusana
#petition

@HistoPol @mina @si_irini @evelynefoerster

"Rapidly Growing California Wildfire Threatens Contaminated Nuclear Reactor Site"

https://gizmodo.com/rapidly-growing-california-wildfire-nears-contaminated-nuclear-reactor-site-2000761295

#photography
#SantaSusana
#wildfires
#SSFL
#contamination

11/
Activists are also pushing for real-time, telemetered radiological and chemical air monitoring networks around the site. By integrating open public APIs directly into neighborhood smartphone apps, the community aims to secure total transparency and prevent future data delays.

This podcast episode stands as a gripping study of grassroots resilience against a radioactive Goliath.

Based on the documentary In the Dark Valley (2021).

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #LA #monitoring

10/
Galvanized by their children's heavy "beads of courage" medical strings, ordinary parents transformed into fierce environmental justice advocates. Mapping cancer clusters from kitchen tables, they launched a petition that garnered over 600,000 signatures. They now demand a full source-material cleanup, fiercely resisting corporate efforts to cap and leave contamination via recreational zoning.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #EnvironmentalJustice #activists #children #BeadsOfCourage

9/
For decades, local communities noticed strange odors and illnesses but trusted institutional safety guarantees. The human toll eventually became impossible to ignore. This deep dive features the story of Melissa Bumstead, a local mother who discovered a geographically impossible cluster of rare pediatric cancers, including neuroblastoma and leukemia, on her own three-mile suburban street.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #activists #MelissaBumstead #children #cancer #contamination

8/
Modern climate realities have transformed this dormant contamination into a dynamic, combustible threat. Local chaparral has sequestered these toxins over decades. When wildfires like the 2,100-acre Sandy Fire strike near the property lines, the extreme heat vaporizes the biomass. This atmospheric resuspension lofts toxic ghosts like cesium-137 into smoke plumes, turning soil pollution into a breathable hazard.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #contamination #wildfires
#SandyFire

7/
The physical danger continues to migrate. Acting as a topographical reservoir, the elevated plateau serves as the headwaters for the Los Angeles River system and the Arroyo Simi. Rainfall routinely washes residual heavy metals and radionuclides down into the biosphere. This includes passing through the Brandeis-Barton Institute, a major Jewish youth summer camp where legacy contaminants have been identified.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #meltdown #coverup #LA

6/
The truth finally emerged in 1979 when UCLA college students forensic-audited obscure archives and uncovered photographs of the melted fuel rods. Today, Boeing and its consultants' technical calculations dispute these high contamination claims, sparking a battle of models over the true fallout. Still, the baseline facts remain undisputed: a reactor melted, and the public was systematically lied to.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #meltdown #coverup #LA #SSFL #UCLA

5/
Independent scholars estimate the radioactive iodine release from the SRE meltdown could have been up to 250 times greater than the 1979 disaster at Three Mile Island. Yet, contractors and the federal government successfully executed a highly coordinated cover-up. Weaponizing Cold War patriotism, officials enforced an absolute gag order on workers, hiding the incident behind deceptive press releases for 20 years.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #fallout #iodine #SRE #SSFL

4/
At the center of this legacy is the July 1959 Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) meltdown. When a coolant loop leaked an organic fluid into the liquid sodium streams, it baked into a thick carbon sludge that choked the reactor core. Lacking a secondary concrete containment dome, operators manually opened facility garage doors over several weeks to vent highly radioactive gases directly into prevailing valley winds.

https://youtu.be/IKyy9_svLnw

#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #meltdown #LA #SRE