Attorneys to Meet Tonight With Rocketdyne Plaintiffs

Girding for a court fight against a wing of aerospace giant Boeing, attorneys for nearly 100 neighbors of the Rocketdyne division’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory plan to discuss their legal strategy tonight in Simi Valley.

The meeting on the neighbors’ lawsuit is set for 6:30 p.m. at the Rancho Santa Susana Community Center, 5005 Los Angeles Ave.

Ten neighbors sued Boeing North American Inc. in March, alleging that decades of nuclear and chemical research at the mountaintop Rocketdyne complex near Simi Valley poisoned their land and water and caused them to contract cancer.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Tina Nieves said Wednesday that the legal team representing the 10 original plaintiffs has heard from about 200 Rocketdyne neighbors since the suit was filed March 10 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

About 100 people have signed retainers with the two law firms pressing the suit, she said. But a judge will not decide until at least August whether the plaintiffs can be certified as a unified class or whether they must pursue their allegations individually, she said.

The suit cites a list of nuclear meltdowns, chemical explosions and toxic releases that Rocketdyne allegedly allowed to foul the air, water and land around the field lab ever since it opened in 1946 to design the first U.S. rocket engines.

But Rocketdyne officials--while not commenting on the suit--have argued that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy found that low-level radioactive residue detected outside the field lab did not pose a threat to health or the environment.

Rocketdyne officials do not plan to attend the meeting, said Lori Circle, a spokeswoman for Boeing North American Inc., Rocketdyne’s parent company.