2005 Kaiser-Hill announces that it has completed the cleanup of Rocky Flats more than fourteen months ahead of schedule. Cook v. Rockwell International goes to trial. It is the largest environmental class-action lawsuit in Colorado history. Property owners seek $500 million in damages.
2006 The jury in Cook v. Rockwell International awards the plaintiffs almost $554 million. The Rocky Flats Stewardship Council is formed to provide ongoing local government and community oversight of the postclosure management of the Rocky Flats site.
2007 Nearly four thousand acres of the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Site are transferred to the Department of the Interior for management by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. As of the publication of this book, the refuge has not been opened to the public.
2008 The judge in Cook v. Rockwell International issues a final award of $926 million, including compensatory damages, interest, and exemplary damages.
2010 A three-judge appeals court at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver overturns the decision in Cook v. Rockwell International and throws out the award.
2011 Following an earthquake and tsunami, on March 11 three nuclear reactors undergo a full meltdown at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, leading to extensive radioactive contamination on the level of the Chernobyl disaster. Radioactivity from Fukushima is measurable on the West Coast of the United States.
* * *
*Adapted from a timeline prepared by the Rocky Flats Stewardship Council.
NOTES
WRITING THIS book was the work of twelve years. Each chapter is closely based on primary and secondary sources, including books, newspaper articles, journals, technical reports, government reports, and court documentation. In addition, I conducted extensive personal interviews and drew on the more than 150 interviews at the Maria Rogers Oral History Program on Rocky Flats at the Carnegie Branch Library for Local History in Boulder, Colorado. Many of these resources are available on the Internet.
All dialogue is as close to verbatim as possible based on interviews, newspaper articles, audio and video documentation, and other sources. I am thankful for the work of investigative journalists with the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post, Westword, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and particularly grateful to have been able to consult Len Ackland’s book, Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West (University of New Mexico Press, 1999), which was vital to nearly every chapter but particularly the section on the 1969 Mother’s Day fire. Interviews with Bill Dennison, Stan Skinger, and Willie Warling were also essential to that section.
My account of the FBI raid and subsequent grand jury investigation is based on articles, court documentation, and many interviews with Jim Stone, Jon Lipsky, Wes McKinley, Jacque Brever, Peter Nordberg, and others. The book The Ambushed Grand Jury: How the Justice Department Covered Up Nuclear Crime: And How We Caught Them Red-Handed by Wes McKinley and Caron Balkany (Apex Press, 2004) was useful.
Sections describing protests at Rocky Flats are based on newspaper articles and firsthand accounts as well as interviews conducted by me or the Maria Rogers Oral History Program with Daniel Ellsberg, Debby Clark, Pam Solo, and others, and a very illuminating article by Edward Abbey.
Technical information is based on extensive DOE documentation (and that of its subcontractors) as cited below, as well as the work of Ed Martell, Carl Johnson, Gregg Wilkinson, Shawn Smallwood, Marco Kaltofen, and others, and several articles by LeRoy Moore. Numerous interviews with Tamara Smith Meza, Peter and Mykaila Nordberg, Ann White, Laura and Jeff Schultz, Charlie Wolf, Charles McKay, Pat McCormick, and Randy Sullivan were particularly helpful, and I am grateful for their willingness to share their lives for this book.
Chapter 1. Mother’s Day
1 From 1952 to 1989, Rocky Flats manufactures: H. Josef Hebert, “Quality of Replacement Plutonium Triggers for Aging Nuclear Warheads Questioned,” Associated Press, January 20, 2008.
2 The creation of each gram of plutonium: Linda Rothstein, “Nothing Clean About ‘Cleanup,’ ” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May/June 1995): 34–41.
3 This is a secret operation: Tamara Jones, “U.S. Vows to Lift 30-Year Veil of Secrecy at Weapons Plants,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1989.
4 Announcement of the plant: Robert Perkin, “Denver Gets Atom Plant,” Rocky Mountain News, March 24, 1951.
5 The Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant will become: These sites are the Nevada Test Site, Hanford Reservation, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Los Alamos National Lab, Sandia National Lab, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Pantex Plant, Pinellas Plant, Savannah River Site, Oak Ridge Reservation, Mound Plant, Food Materials Production Center (Fernald), and the Kansas City Plant.
6 Not even the governor: “Boulder Leaders Cheer Atom Plant,” Boulder Daily Camera, March 24, 1951.
7 Colorado’s top elected officials are not informed: Citizen’s Guide to Rocky Flats: Colorado’s Nuclear Bomb Factory (Boulder, CO: Rocky Mountain Peace Center, 1992).
8 Contractors, the local power plant, and local businesses: Robert L. Perkin, “PSC Expected to Get $45 Million Atomic Plant Contract,” Rocky Mountain News, October 28, 1951.
9 The newspaper reports that workers on the project: Tamara Jones and Dan Morain, “Federal Probers Sound Alarms: Rocky Flats Boon Turns into Ecological Nightmare,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1989.
10 The plant site in Jefferson County: “Colorado Will Get New Atomic Plant,” New York Times, March 24, 1951.
11 Officials from the AEC emphasize: Joseph Givando, “Denver A-Plant Plans Shrouded in Strict Secrecy,” Denver Post, March 24, 1951.
12 When questioned further by reporters: Len Ackland, Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), 52.
13 He warns against the location: Laura Frank and Ann Imse, “Rocky Flats Whistle-blower Dies at 82,” Rocky Mountain News, April 12, 2007.
14 “The housing situation is rough here”: Sam Lusky, “Atom Plant Workers to Increase State’s Housing Problems,” Rocky Mountain News, March 25, 1951.
15 Solid and liquid waste is packed into: Mark Bearwald, “Sprawling Rocky Flats Keeps Its AEC Secret,” Denver Post, January 16, 1958.
16 What spews from the smokestacks : “Rocky Flats Stack Spews Higher Level of Uranium,” Denver Post, April 30, 1953.
17 More than 7,640 pounds of plutonium: Ackland, Making a Real Killing, 152.
18 Rock climbing, biking: Stan Skinger, interviews by author, March 24, 2007, February 28, 2008, and May 19, 2008, and by Dorothy Ciarlo, March 9, 2005 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1300V A-B).
19 felt “somewhat divorced from the actual nuclear weapon”: Robert Rothe, interviews by Hannah Nordhaus, November 10, 2003, and November 13, 2003 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1179), and interview by author, February 25, 2012.
20 A few days later: Bill Dennison, interview by Dorothy Ciarlo, March 1, 2001 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1066 A-B).
21 It’s the core of the plant: Willie Warling, interview by Dorothy Ciarlo, May 27, 1998 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 0927).
22 Internal alpha emitters like plutonium: Helen A. Grogan et al., “Assessing Risk of Exposure to Plutonium,” Risk Assessment Corporation (February 2000), 6.27–6.39.
23 The filters had not been replaced: “Rocky Flats Revisited: Carl Johnson Responds,” Ambio 2, no. 6 (1982): 376–77.
24 A spokesman from the AEC: “Atomic Plant Fire Causes $50,000 Loss,” Denver Post, September 12, 1957.
25 When pressed for more information: “There’s No Atomic Blast Danger at Rocky Flats,” Rocky Mountain News, June 1, 1954.
26 Based on soil and water testing: Howard Holme, interview by Hannah Nordhaus, September 1, 2005 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1369).
27 Later an AEC fire investigator will report: Ackland, Making a Real Killi
ng, 153. See also Atomic Energy Commission, “Report on Investigation—1969 Fire,” vol. 1.
28 A plant spokesman states: “Fire Is Reported at Rocky Flats,” Rocky Mountain News, May 12, 1969.
29 Production is halted temporarily: “Year’s Delay Possibility, Probers Told,” Denver Post, June 24, 1969.
30 Due to pressure from concerned scientists: “AEC Admits Plutonium Release at Rocky Flats,” Denver Post, February 19, 1970.
31 The contracting laboratory for Rockwell: Dark Circle, 1983, reissued 2007, directed by Judy Irving, Chris Beaver, and Ruth Landy. See also Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experiment with Atomic Radiation (New York: Delacorte, 1982).
32 Ultimately, Rex comes to believe: Rex Haag, interview by author, Arvada, Colorado, August 10, 2002.
Chapter 2. Drums and Bunnies
1 One Rocky Flats worker and then another: Citizen Summary, Rocky Flats Historical Public Exposures Studies, 903 Area, www.cdphe.state.co.us/rf/903area.htm.
2 The rabbit, dissected for analysis: Dow Chemical memo, “Contaminated Rabbit,” January 3, 1962. Refers to a rabbit dissected on July 24, 1961.
3 Occasionally demonstrators begin: Anne Guilfoile, interview by author, Arvada, Colorado, October 29, 2006. The first documented protest at Rocky Flats was in 1968, according to LeRoy Moore.
4 Around the same time, a Los Angeles construction company: Tamara Jones and Dan Morain, “Federal Probers Sound Alarms: Rocky Flats Boon Turns into Ecological Nightmare,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1989.
5 “Liar, liar, plant’s on fire!”: Ann Breese White, interview by author, Denver, Colorado, July 31, 2004. See also unpublished essay by Ann Breese White, “Paying the Piper: The Nuclear Legacy of Rocky Flats,” January 16, 1996, held in archives at Western History Room, Denver Public Library.
6 On the west side of town, not far from Rocky Flats: Pat McCormick, interview by author, Denver, Colorado, November 30, 2006. See also Pat McCormick, interview by Dorothy Ciarlo, January 13, 2007 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1454V).
7 The show home with a built-in bomb shelter: “Ode to the Family Fallout Shelter,” September 14, 2010, http://dscriber.com/3290-ode-to-the-family-fallout-shelter.
8 The AEC reports, “There is no evidence”: Anthony Ripley, “Colorado Atom Plant Is Called Radiation Hazard,” New York Times, February 11, 1970.
9 And, he adds, there will be no off-site testing: LeRoy Moore, “Democracy and Public Health at Rocky Flats: The Examples of Edward A. Martell and Carl J. Johnson,” in Tortured Science: Health Studies, Ethics and Nuclear Weapons, edited by Dianne Quigley, Amy Lowman, and Steve Wing (Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing, 2011).
10 One girl, Tina: Name has been changed.
11 Comparing these samples: Moore, “Democracy and Public Health at Rocky Flats,” 70.
12 The chicks have beaks so curled: Judy Danielson, “Talk at Rocky Flats Cold War Museum Event,” October 28, 2006.
13 Bini buys several horses each year: Bini Abbott, interview by author, Arvada, Colorado, February 7, 2005.
14 Plutonium deposits in the top: Moore, “Democracy and Public Health at Rocky Flats,” 70.
15 In some places, the level is 1,500 times higher than normal: Fox Butterfield, “Dispute on Wastes Poses Threat to Operations at Weapons Plant,” New York Times, October 21, 1988.
16 Deposits are heaviest: Ripley, “Colorado Atom Plant Is Called Radiation Hazard.”
17 For plutonium to be truly dangerous: Ripley, “Colorado Atom Plant Is Called Radiation Hazard.”
18 The CCEI report states: Ripley, “Colorado Atom Plant Is Called Radiation Hazard.”
19 The amount of plutonium released: Alan Cunningham, “Putzier: Press Plagues Rocky Flats,” Rocky Mountain News, December 16, 1971.
20 Glenn Seaborg, the physicist who: Jeremy Bernstein, Plutonium: A History of the World’s Most Dangerous Element (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), 105.
21 Dow Chemical and the AEC have known: Keith Schneider, “Weapons Plant Pressed for Accounting of Toll on Environment and Health,” New York Times, February 15, 1990.
22 Five particularly powerful windstorms: These windstorms occurred on December 5, 1968; January 6–7 and 30, 1969; and March 19 and April 7, 1969. Citizen Summary, Rocky Flats Historical Public Exposures Studies, 903 Area.
23 Major General Giller declares: “Rocky Flats Still Smolders,” Science News 97, no. 8 (February 21, 1970): 194.
24 In 1969, Gofman and his colleague: Jeremy Pearce, “John W. Gofman, 88, Scientist and Advocate for Nuclear Safety, Dies,” New York Times, August 26, 2007. See also John W. Gofman, Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure: An Independent Analysis (San Francisco: Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Book Division, 1990).
25 At the 1970 congressional hearing: Fred Gillies, “Rocky Flats: It’s Always There,” Denver Post, March 21, 1972.
26 In a statement to the press: Gillies, “Rocky Flats: It’s Always There.”
27 Receives a grant from the Energy Research and Development Administration: In 1975 the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was split into two parts, the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In 1977 ERDA became the Department of Energy (DOE). To avoid the confusion of competing acronyms, I occasionally use the generic phrase “Energy Department” to refer to either ERDA or the DOE.
28 But no action is taken: Harvey Nichols, interview by author, Boulder, Colorado, October 27, 2006. See also interview by Hannah Nordhaus, September 14, 2005 (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1372V A-B).
29 One afternoon after school: Name has been changed.
30 When he gets the results: Al Hazle, interview by Hannah Nordhaus, July 22, 2003 (Rocky Flats Cold War Museum and Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1154V A-B).
31 Karma’s had a crush, too, on Scott: Name has been changed.
32 A few years down the road, in 1981: Carl J. Johnson, “Cancer Incidence in an Area Contaminated with Radionuclides Near a Nuclear Installation,” Ambio 10, no. 4 (1981): 176–82.
33 Dow Chemical and the AEC don’t bother: Len Ackland, Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), 171.
34 The Colorado Health Department tests the water: Tad Bartimus and Scott McCartney, Trinity’s Children: Living Along America’s Nuclear Highway (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), 190.
35 Several residents, including the new mother : Hazle, interview by Nordhaus. AEC officials are slow to acknowledge: The Lamm-Wirth Task Force Final Report (1975), 46.
36 residents are told: James Sterba, “Radiation Traced to Atom Plant in Colorado,” New York Times, September 27, 1973.
37 Scientists estimate that 50 to 100 curies: Lamm-Wirth Report, 47. See also “Investigative Report of the 1973 Tritium Release at the Rocky Flats Plant in Golden, Colorado,” Radiation/Noise Branch, Hazardous Materials Control Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, July 1975.
38 Rocky Flats maintains there is no threat: Fred Gillies, “AEC Opens Rocky Flats,” Denver Post, October 21, 1973.
39 The Environmental Protection Agency sidesteps: Patricia Buffer, “Rocky Flats History,” Department of Energy Rocky Flats Field Office (July 2003), 8. There are several versions of this document, with various dates.
40 “We won’t drink the water”: Bill Richards, “Plutonium Taints Their Reservoir: Should U.S. Pay for Denver Suburb’s New Water Supply?” Washington Post, March 21, 1977.
41 Rocky Flats officials explain: Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment, “Technical Topics Papers: Surface Water,” 3. www.cdphe.state.co.us/rf/contamin.htm.
42 A storm of publicity eventually forces: Fred Gillies, “Atom Waste Buried in Tons at Flats Plant,” Denver Post, August 7, 1973.
43 The presence of strontium strengthens: Joel War
ner, “Servant of the People,” Boulder Weekly, January 6–13, 2005.
44 As an aside to Broomfield’s worried city manager: Hazle, interview by Nordhaus.
45 Al Hazle notes in the article: Fred Gillies, “Curium at N-Plant a Surprise,” Denver Post, September 21, 1973.
46 The study will measure: Grace Lichtenstein, “Housing Near Colorado Nuclear Plant Stirs Fears of Possible Health Hazards,” New York Times, January 11, 1976.
47 Several of the readings exceed: Carl Johnson, “Survey of Land Proposed for Residential Development East of Rocky Flats.” Report to the Jefferson County Commissioners and the Colorado State Health Department, September 12, 1975.
48 The readings are much higher: Moore, “Democracy and Public Health at Rocky Flats” (referencing Edward A. Martell, interview by Robert Del Tredici, July 22, 1982).
49 Johnson feels this creates a potential hazard: Carl J. Johnson, Ronald R. Tidball, Ronald C. Severson, “Plutonium Hazard in Respirable Dust on the Surface of Soil,” Science, New Series 193, no. 4252 (August 6, 1976): 488–90.
50 It’s decided that no more subdivisions: Timothy Lange, “They Fired Dr. Johnson,” Westword, May 28, 1981.
51 “If it were,” he says, “I’d be the first”: Lichtenstein, “Housing Near Colorado Nuclear Plant Stirs Fears.”
52 In 1951, when Charlie is nine: Charles McKay, interview by author, Arvada, Colorado, October 27, 2006.
53 “It’s really gone too far”: Howard Holme, interview by Hannah Nordhaus, September 1, 2005 (Rocky Flats Cold War Museum and Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH 1369).
54 The same year Church files his lawsuit: Buffer, “Rocky Flats History.”
Chapter 3. Nuns and Pirates
1 In early December 1974: “Cattle Near Rocky Flats Show High Plutonium Level,” Rocky Mountain News, December 5, 1974. See also Steve Wynkoop, “Cattle’s Lungs Hold Plutonium,” Denver Post, December 5, 1974.
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