I mentioned in the Rocky Flats Book, “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked,” that I could find no evidence to support the continuing belief by some that Rocky Flats was conducting illegal “midnight burning” in the Building 771 incinerator as had been alleged in the search warrant authorizing the FBI and EPA raid in 1989. I agreed with the expert who informed the Justice Department he expected that the heat trace detected by the spy plane flyovers in 1988 was caused by the building heating system and not the incinerator.

I continue to search the archives of the Rocky Flats Museum, and found two documents that support what I wrote. The first is the Emission Permit issued by the Colorado Department of Health on August 28, 1985 that allowed the incinerator to operate legally. The permit describes the, “Multiple chamber retort type incinerator designed to burn radioactive contaminated plastics, paper, rubber, cloth, etc. at a charge rate of 49 lbs./hour (with) emissions…controlled by potassium hydroxide scrubber and HEPA filtration.”

Another document from the archives was an Envision article dated October 9, 2002, titled “Disposing of glovebox tied to FBI raid.” The article doesn’t explain that steam cleaning was used to clean gloveboxes for the December inventory of nuclear material, but it does refer to the operation. “The 1988 image of the heat plume depicted B771’s exhaust, which was probably warmed by steam-cleaning operations, but on a December night was significantly warmer than ambient air regardless of building operations. Up to 250,000 cubic feet of air is exhausted through B771’s stack as part of a system to maintain negative differential pressure…” “Incineration does not increase the temperature of stack exhaust significantly, if at all. Processing the incinerator off-gases through two heat exchangers was very effective at cooling them.” Another part of the article said in addition to the two heat exchangers, “The gases entered a spray chamber and were sprayed with potassium hydroxide to neutralize them and knock out fly ash. The gases then passed through a series of high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters in the incinerator filter plenum before being released through the stack.” In summary, what the spy plane saw had nothing to do with incineration.

I also mentioned in the book that one of the people who informed the investigators about suspicions of illegal activities that were listed in the search warrant was the EPA enforcement person assigned to Rocky Flats. (I wonder whether the information was in the form of an affidavit.) I mentioned that person was no fan of Rocky Flats. I located an award given to that person in the archives. It is titled, “ROCKY FLATS RADICAL, Protestor Award.” The certificate explains that the award was given “In appreciation for generous commitment, environmental spirit, and outspoken talent in fighting Rocky Flats contamination and challenging bureaucratic rhetoric in order to shut down this immoral facility that irradiates our community with carcinogenic radionuclides.” It then adds the “Rocky Flats Radical Protestor (was) Dedicated to protect citizens who are tired of being a nuclear-guinea-pig living in a radioactive fallout zone, forced by bureaucrats to drink and breathe nuclear waste. It doesn’t take much interpretation to see how fairly Rocky Flats was treated by this government employee.