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The Hidden Fortress & Terrible Logistics
Built in the 1950s and 60s, the #SSFL plateau sat nestled behind massive rocky hills that acted as a giant natural wall, completely masking top-secret nuclear and rocket testing operations from the public eye. Despite an official study ranking #SantaSusana fifth or sixth for safety due to terrible meteorological conditions that could easily carry radioactive materials into populated areas, the site was selected anyway.
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The 1959 Secret Meltdown
In July 1959, an absolute disaster struck the site’s Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE). A cooling agent called Tetralin leaked, clogging vital coolant channels and causing 13 of the reactor's 43 nuclear fuel elements to severely overheat and melt.
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Unlike modern commercial plants or the Three Mile Island facility—which feature thick, concrete containment domes to trap radiation—this experimental reactor had no containment dome whatsoever. Radioactive gases escaped straight into the open Southern California air. While technical debates continue, scholar Dr. Arjun Makhijani estimated that the radioactive iodine released could have been 250 times greater than the amount released during the infamous 1979 Three Mile Island accident.
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Instead of alerting the public, leadership ordered workers to quietly vent radioactive noble gases into the atmosphere through large garage-type doors over a period of weeks. The cover-up was absolute, with workers commanded to stay completely silent; the full truth only began to surface 20 years later when UCLA students uncovered buried documents in 1979.
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A Toxic Cocktail
Beyond the nuclear fallout, decades of environmental negligence created a massive chemical hazard:
• Rocket Engine Testing: The site hosted over 30,000 high-powered rocket engine tests.
• Groundwater Contamination: Workers routinely flushed these engines with a highly toxic solvent called TCE, trapping half a million gallons of it in the groundwater.
https://youtu.be/oH8BilL6H1Q
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• Open Burn Pits: Hazardous materials were disposed of by dragging 55-gallon drums of toxic chemicals to open pits and literally shooting them with rifles to ignite them, creating huge plumes of toxic smoke.
https://youtu.be/oH8BilL6H1Q
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Gravity’s Revenge & The Incinerator Chimney Effect
Because the lab sits on a mountain plateau with no physical barrier holding back the pollution, inescapable physics dictate the flow of contamination. When it rains, rainwater washes heavy metals and mixed fission products out of the saturated soil...
#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #LA #SSFL #SRE #hibakusha #contamination #radioactive
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running down intermittent streams past a children's camp (the Brandeis-Barden Institute) and directly into the headwaters of the Los Angeles River. This pulls a toxic path directly into the watersheds and residential backyards of half a million people living within just 10 miles of the site.
#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #LA #SSFL #SRE #hibakusha #contamination
#radioactive #children #rivers
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Today, this legacy remains an active threat through what researchers call the "incinerator chimney effect". When a massive wildfire—such as the recent Sandy Fire—tears through the area, the intense heat vaporizes the contaminated soil and plant life.
#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #LA #SSFL #SRE #hibakusha #contamination
#radioactive #wildfires #SandyFire
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This process lofts 60-year-old legacy radioactive particles straight into the smoke plumes, weaponizing the pollutants and carrying them far into the air columns. Even when emergency crews heroically achieve 100% containment on a blaze, the smoke passing over the area causes extreme, justified anxiety, requiring the active deployment of hazardous materials and radiation monitoring teams to track the air quality.
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The Human Cost: Beads of Courage
The response from the local communities to this invisible, multi-generational threat has been profound. Local parents, such as Melissa Bumstead, whose own daughter battled a rare leukemia, began using everyday tools like Facebook and Google Maps to map out clusters of sick children right in their own neighborhoods.
#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #LA #SSFL #SRE #hibakusha #children
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These families have shared deeply moving symbols like Beads of Courage, where every single glass bead a child receives physically represents a painful medical milestone—such as enduring chemotherapy or a blood transfusion.
#SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #LA #SSFL #SRE #hibakusha #children
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This intense grassroots mobilization has fueled an incredible petition with over 600,000 signatures, demanding that the government and current site owners take real accountability and fully clean up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory once and for all.
How much longer will these communities be forced to pay the price for secrets kept 60 years ago?
#TheEarthGazer #SantaSusana #NuclearAccidents #LA #SSFL #SRE #hibakusha #children
The origin of the Beads of Courage
(A clip from the documentary In the Dark Valley, 2021).
Each bead represents something different.
For example, red represents when she had a blood transfusion.
Black when she got poked with a needle.
Yellow for inpatient stays.
White for chemotherapy.
earthling