One of the odd things about growing up in the San Fernando Valley (there were many) was hearing the nighttime roar of rocket engines and seeing a yellow glow light the sky over the hills behind Chatsworth. Experimental rocket testing with exotic fuels went on at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Lab for decades. We didn't know it at the time, but the first domestic nuclear power reactors also were built up at Santa Sue, as they called it. The waste and chemical residue is still being cleaned up and the health consequences debated, and today's Times reports that the city of Los Angeles is joining in a lawsuit demanding the U.S. Department of Energy do a better of job of fixing the environmental damage.

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Two Mile Island