The Department of Energy's ETEC team honors a longtime staffer, engages with the community and shares recent site updates.
Energy Technology Engineering Center
June 9, 2025
minute read time
Dear Stakeholders,
Our biggest news this quarter is somber: on April 5, Stephie Jennings, long-time Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) deputy director, passed away. While my work at ETEC only briefly overlapped with Stephie’s, I assure you that her legacy as a key part of the cleanup progress at Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) lives on. She will be missed.
Also in this newsletter, you will find details on what the Department of Energy (DOE) has been up to the past few months. This includes participating in the Simi Valley Street Fair and hosting Joseph Ayala, the newest Simi Valley council member, on a site tour in May, and holding the public scoping meetings for our Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) in March.
My gratitude goes out to everyone who participated in our SEIS scoping process, whether you submitted a comment online, logged into our remote meeting, or came to our in‑person open house. We appreciate your time and value your input. We know you are passionate about the cleanup at SSFL, and I don’t make light of the time commitments you make to participate.
As DOE discussed at our scoping meetings, we are conducting a SEIS as part of the National Environmental Policy Act process to evaluate additional alternatives for soils cleanup at SSFL. This is a key step forward in achieving a final cleanup plan for SSFL. Examples of recent progress include our backfill and laboratory studies, where we are gathering additional data that will be presented in our SEIS to support soil remediation. The science corner activity in this newsletter is a fun way to help understand these studies better.
Please read the following pages to find the updates from DOE’s cleanup at SSFL, including a story on the SEIS, and feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Dr. Josh Mengers