In July 1959, a partial radioactive meltdown rocked the Valley's giant Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a nuclear reactor test facility, leading to contamination and alleged cancer cases in Canoga Park and Chatsworth that some say continue to this day. The Neon Tommy blog reports that a group of Oak Park high school students--the "Teens Against Toxins"--stuck it to Boeing yesterday, the current owner of the lab, by throwing a "bake sale meltdown" to pay for a new clean-up. Boeing, which supposedly doesn't want to scrub the area for financial reasons, also incited the teens ire for their civil lawsuit over a state senate bill that proposes rigid standards for the clean up of nuclear energy sites. The teen toxin ringmaster, 15-year-old polemic Devyn Gortener, says the Chatsworth community has an inordinate amount of a rare and fatal eye cancer that's only been seen in big numbers in this part of the Valley—and Chernobyl. The kids made $99.31 at their bake sale, but Boeing refused to take it. "Now we get to donate $99.31 to a cancer research foundation," Gortener said. [Santa Susana image via OCRegister]
· Students Entice Boeing With Sweets to Clean Up Waste [Neon Tommy]
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