Meltdown Morsels? Students Bribe Boeing with Radioactive Sweets

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Boeing must think radioactive waste is mighty tasty. After all, they’ve allowed plenty of it to sit at one of their research facilities and seep into the surrounding community. So naturally, some students who want the company to clean up its toxic mess at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory thought that offering a bribe of “˜meltdown morsels’ and other radioactive sweets might do the trick.

But the “Teens Against Toxins”, a group of tenth-graders at Oak Park High School in Southern California, must have realized that what Boeing wants above all is money, since the company recently filed a civil lawsuit in an attempt to get out of paying for cleanup of the site. They held a “bake sale meltdown” and presented the company, which made over $68 billion last year, with a gigantic check for the proceeds. The grand total? $99.31.

Shocker: Boeing didn’t show up to accept the money. After 30 minutes of waiting around outside the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the students, some parents and community members were informed that a Boeing spokesperson was camera-shy and that as a private company, Boeing can’t accept donations.

The 2,859-acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory was once home to 10 nuclear reactors, which experienced a partial meltdown in 1959 when it was run by Rocketdyne. Thirty years later, an environmental survey revealed shocking toxic and radioactive contamination. Boeing bought the site in 1996 and shut it down in 2006.

A state senate bill passed in 2007 set strict cleanup standards for the site, which is set to eventually become state parkland. But a Boeing spokesperson told MichaelMoore.com that the law “singles out the site to meet cleanup requirements that go far beyond what is required to protect citizens elsewhere in California under generally applicable state law.”

Apparently those delicious Uranium Cakes and Peanut Butter Plutonium Treats were just too bitter for Boeing to swallow – but it’s okay if everyone else eats them.

Image: lavocado

Stephanie Rogers

Stephanie Rogers currently resides in North Carolina where she covers a variety of green topics, from sustainability to food.