Author Archives: RF_Alum

Rocky Flats Then and Now—A Surprising Revelation

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The event held at the Arvada Center June 6-8, 2014 was interesting, and I commend the organizers and participants. I have posted earlier commentaries about the event, and I am considering perhaps one more. One panel discussion was titled “The Raid in Retrospect—Keynote Panel.” The Moderator was Patty Limerick and the panel consisted of Jon Lipsky (FBI leader of the raid), Former Governor Roy Romer, and former Congressman David Skaggs.

David Skaggs was the first panelist to speak who described how he had won a close Congressional race and was told by Tim Wirth, “Now Rocky Flats is yours.” Mr. Skaggs added that he was unaware of the raid until after it began and was made public.

Former Colorado Governor Romer was next, who began by describing how the Governor of Idaho refused three railroad cars of waste from Rocky Flats (an important occurrence). He toured the Plant and issued an order that limited the amount of waste allowed to be stored there.

The mostly mundane nature of what was being discussed was broken with Governor Romer saying that he was going to discuss something for the first time in public. He described how he had been informed that a night-time surveillance flyover of Building 771 at Rocky Flats had identified heat coming from the stack, which was interpreted to indicate that wastes were being illegally incinerated. He said he was very concerned and went to the Plant to look at the incinerator. (What follows approximates his comments.) “The incinerator was about the size of a refrigerator. I asked how many people had to be in the loop to run this ‘furnace.’ I was told it takes 30 people, and I didn’t think the ‘furnace’ had burned. Years later the FBI said the film was faulty and didn’t show the ‘furnace’ was burning.” Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Papers Unsealed

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One of the panels that was part of the event at the Arvada Center about the Rocky Flats raid was  titled “The Raid in Retrospect.” The panel consisted of moderator Patty Limerick, Jon Lipsky (leader of the FBI Raid team), Roy Romer (Colorado governor in 1989), and David Skaggs (Colorado Congressman in 1989).

Mr. Lipsky said in his remarks that he had asked Mike Norton to delay forming the Special Federal Grand Jury. He added the case got out of hand quickly, and he was ordered to unseal the search warrant. He finished by offering the opinion the reason for the Grand Jury was to keep a seal on the documents. That comment feeds the conspiracy theory that there are 65 boxes of evidence from the raid that would reveal sites of contamination and environmental crimes not pursued by the government.

An audience member asked why the government wouldn’t allow anyone to look at the content of the 65 boxes. The panel members sat looking at each other in silence for a time after the question. Congressman Skaggs earned my respect by stepping up with an answer that I’m certain was not popular with the audience. He said that, as a lawyer, he understood the reason why Grand Jury information needed to be treated as secret. It would be “a slippery slope” to begin releasing such information to meet special needs. He said he was willing to let the courts decide.  Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Then and Now, Secrecy and Its Fallout

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I have written several commentaries about the event titled “Rocky Flats Then and Now:  25 years After the Raid.” This one will be posted earlier because it is about the panel discussion titled “Secrecy and Its Fallout,” and I was originally listed as a panelist. (See the commentary posted June 4th for an explanation.) Nat Miullo, listed as “Former Environmental Protection Agency Inspector at Rocky Flats” was on this panel, and he gave an engaging and personable introduction about how he arrived at that position. He said his father, and he spoke of him in admirable terms, had worked in the military in positions that required secrecy and had discouraged him from accepting the position overseeing Rocky Flats. Mr. Miullo had, as I understood him, worked on waste issues at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and his father said Rocky Flats would be more difficult.  He went against his father’s advice and accepted the Rocky Flats assignment. He commented that security requirements were carefully followed at Rocky Flats and none of the people working there were going to break those laws. He discussed how he filed the application for a security clearance and was frustrated at how long it took for the investigation to be completed. Mr. Miullo described that he was prevented from seeing some operations at Rocky Flats even after he received his clearance, but explained that there were strict “need to know requirements.” He did not dismiss the logic of those requirements, and I recall he even said workers with clearances were not allowed to see what was going on outside their buildings unless they had “a need to know.” He said that he was led into some areas blindfolded because there were operations that he did not need to see to do his job, but “Over time that was overcome.” Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Then and Now, an Overview

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I attended several of the panel discussions about the twenty-five year anniversary of the raid of Rocky Flats, and commend the organizers. The event was well attended. It was obvious that there are still high emotions about the Rocky Flats mission and its legacy.

Len Ackland, one of the organizers, gave a good sketch of Rocky Flats history. He did say something I thought was surprising, if my notes are correct. He said there is a fundamental controversy about secrecy of weapons production. I would expect that critics of Rocky Flats would believe that protecting that kind of information would be crucial to at least slowing nuclear proliferation.  He mentioned the number of nuclear weapons remaining in the world, and I doubt anyone wishes for more countries to begin building them.

I have some specific comments about the event, and one I do not want to forget is how much I admired Jack Weaver for his participation in the opening event. I also greatly appreciated that Phil Saba stood up after one of the panel discussions to say he came from a job that was dangerous to Rocky Flats where safety came first. I also appreciated Ken Frieberg’s wonderful discussions of how production information was guarded as secret and environmental information was open to everyone. Of course Jon Lipsky, the FBI agent in charge of the Rocky Flats raid, attempted to discredit that statement by saying the waste characterization reports filed by the plant as required by law were marked as “Unclassified Nuclear Information (UCNI)” I expect he knew that the reports contained information about piping diagrams and waste volumes that could be used by interested agents to perform “reverse engineering” to identify processes used at Rocky Flats. Those reports contained “waste processing” information, and not “environmental” information. What Ken said was true.   Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the Raid

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There will be a series of presentations June 6-8 at the Arvada Center to discuss various aspects of the raid, and I was scheduled to be a panelist. The original schedule was for me to appear with Wes McKinley, the foreman of the Grand Jury that investigated Rocky Flats. I reluctantly agreed to participate when I was reminded I had mentioned in my book, “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked,” that I hoped to have a polite discussion with Mr. McKinley some day. I was disappointed when Mr. McKinley had a scheduling conflict that caused him to withdraw. I became concerned when I was told the final make-up of the panel (titled Secrecy and its Fallout). I expressed my concerns to the organizers and offered that they could replace me. They took me up on my offer.

Secrecy was a constant part of my professional life when I was working in the production areas of Rocky Flats. It had practically nothing to do with my work in the environmental organizations. We were required to have environmental reports reviewed by an “authorized classifier,” but I have not one single memory of an environmental report requiring even the smallest modification before receiving the “unclassified” stamp before distribution on and off-site to anyone interested. Continue reading →

Mean Genes

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book cvr_mean genesThe subtitle of this remarkable book written by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan is “From sex to money to food, Taming our primal instincts.” The first sentence grabbed my attention. “Consider this book an owner’s manual for your brain.” That is followed a bit later by warning us that our brains have minds of their own and sometimes (or often) they encourage us to do things that aren’t in our best interest. For example, our genes encourage us to eat in excess when food is plentiful to survive when food is scarce. The trouble is that food is seldom scarce for some of us.

We also enjoy having nice things and spend money to have them in times of plenty. That might have worked well when we had to use actual cash and noticed when it was gone. Credit cards allow us to buy pretty and fun things without the need for cash. Making yourself pay off the credit card balance when the bill arrives is one way to learn when you aren’t in a time of plenty. Learning to save doesn’t come naturally. Surveys indicate people want to save ten percent of their income, but the reality is that the average savings is less than one percent. The authors say they found they had to hide money from themselves in the form of automatic withdrawals into some kind of investment or savings account. Another interesting discussion is about how we are genetically programmed to be lazy. This comes from when energy in the form of food was often hard to obtain and frivolous activity wasted energy. “The only people who exercise in poor countries are the privileged…” Animals that expend energy needlessly die and their genes die with them.” Continue reading →