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 December 6, 2006

 BY MAIL AND BY FACSIMILE TRANSMISSION

 I am writing to express my very serious concerns with certain of the proposed changes that are before you relevant to Boeing’s NPDES permit for its Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), and respectfully request that this letter be made a part of the formal record of this proceeding.

 Boeing is challenging changes to monitoring requirements and numeric effluent limitations on this highly contaminated site that are more stringent, or that change the analytic methods of their 1998 permit. 

 Although I am aware that Boeing disputes much of the characterization of this site, we are on the brink of the rainy season, and surface water runoff limits are critical.  It is worth noting that for the time period between 2004 and the present Boeing concedes in an SEC filing that “we have received four violation notices for exceeding permissible limits under our NPDES permit.”  These are the very limits that Boeing now challenges.  In the legal parlance, Boeing is coming to this Board with “unclean hands.”

 The proposed changes would also waive Boeing’s pollution limits for virtually the entire balance of the term of its permit.  Boeing claims that its Best Management Practices (BMPs) for preventing runoff from leaving the site – essentially hay bales and re-vegetation – were destroyed in the October 2005 fire.  However, over a year of re-growth has since occurred, and it is neither complicated nor time consuming to place new hay bales as physical barriers to surface runoff.  BMPs should be a given, not something offered up by the polluter.

 My concerns also relate to the suggestion that it is not necessary to have numerical limits for surface runoff on the interior of the site because it will somehow be measured at the outfalls.  I believe that the migration paths for contaminants within the site constitute highly relevant information that will be lost by eliminating the interior monitoring.  All of the outfall limits should be maintained, and I have not seen any public policy reason not to do so other than the objection by Boeing of “redundancy.”  If ever there was a contaminated site where redundancy is actually desirable and more protective of the public health and safety, it is the SSFL.

 Lastly, in addition to the imminent rains, there are legal forces in play that add to the untimeliness of the changes Boeing seeks. I am informed that in November of 2005, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles served Boeing with a grand jury subpoena seeking documents pertaining to their compliance with the NPDES permit, beginning in 2001.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office has, as I understand it, subsequently alleged that Boeing has violated the federal Clean Water Act, and it remains possible that a criminal prosecution could follow.  Any action to revise, weaken, or otherwise change the permit that the Regional Board issued, following lengthy public hearings and extensive public comment, will surely be cited by Boeing as a part of their defense to any legal action.  This is a position in which the State Board will not want to find itself, and which can easily be avoided by allowing the Regional Board’s actions to stand.

 In conclusion, I am strongly opposed to granting the requested relief to Boeing, including eliminating the pollution limits that have, as I understand it, been the subject of repeated enforcement actions against Boeing for many years.  The sole reason for Boeing’s appeal of the order appears to be their own desire to reduce the level of monitoring that is required of them, while they remain under investigation for their current level of compliance.  There is no basis that serves the public interest to issue an Order that Boeing do less.  There are considerable reasons to require them to do more, and the Regional Board has made those findings. 

 Thank you for considering the wellbeing of the constituents that I represent and the neighboring communities.  Please don’t hesitate to call on me if I may be of any assistance to you in your deliberations.

 Sincerely,

JULIA BROWNLEY,

Assemblymember, 41^st District

JB:lr

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