Category Archives: Commentary

FBI Ruling on Hillary Clinton

Posted on by

The determination that no charges will be brought against Hillary Clinton for using a private email server that could have (and probably did) result in compromising highly classified material bothers me on several levels. I and others at the Rocky Flats Plant were required to carefully protect classified information. It was made abundantly clear that carelessness with classified reports could have dire consequences, to include loss of your clearance (and therefore your job) and possible criminal charges. I’ve never believed Ms Clinton’s assertion that she had never sent classified information on her private server and that nothing ever sent was marked classified. We were briefed on what would be classified, and we treated incomplete reports as classified from the moment we began drafting a report. It was deemed “born classified.” I’m confident Ms. Clinton didn’t need a secret or top secret stamp on much of the information to know it was classified and should be treated as such.

On another level, it is easy compare this situation to the FBI raid on Rocky Flats that found nothing alleged in the search warrant. The Justice Department persisted in continuing the investigation with a Grand Jury in a desperate search for why they conducted the raid. They refused to give up and admit they were wrong. They eventually forced Rockwell to plead guilty to crimes that would not have been crimes anywhere else. Almost all of the items in the plea bargain referred to environmental issues that had been reported in detail by the plant well before the raid and, in the words of the plea bargain, had no negative offsite effects. All the raid accomplished was frightening local citizens, but the Justice Department persisted in forcing a guilty plea that helped save their reputations. Apparently Clinton’s reputation was judged to be more important than the reputation of the FBI.

Why did the FBI not find a “Martha Stewart” type of violation in Hillary’s case? Stewart had been accused of insider trading, no evidence was found to support the claim, but she was convicted of lying to federal investigators (or at least giving them conflicting information). Why was Hillary given a pass despite the fact she repeatedly lied? The only logical answer is that Hillary was treated differently because of her political position.

This makes me very sad for the country. The laws are apparently really only for the “Little People.” To paraphrase Orwell’s Animal Farm, we “Little People” have naively believed all people are equal. We now know that some people are more equal than others.

Rocky Flats Museum Meeting

Posted on by

There was a commentary last week discussing the most recent Rocky Flats Museum Newsletter and how that newsletter rekindled my interest in the museum. I sent some emails and was invited to a lunch meeting with “Murph” Widdowfield, President of the museum. He bought my lunch at Nancy’s on 7120 Federal Blvd. He brought me a packet of information that I intend to very briefly summarize. The first thing that was obvious was the list of the Board of Directors has a heavy influence by Rocky Flats alums and is missing the people who once served on the board to make certain the anti-Rocky Flats perspective had a heavy influence on anything the museum did. I had ended my volunteering at the museum because I became tired of getting openly frustrated that I believed the desire was to present a negative desription of the plant. One article in the packet describes how “Rocky Flats spawned many rumors and misconceptions over the years. These misconceptions have grown in some people’s minds into reality.” I believed the anti-Rocky Flats group working on the museum was working to encourage those kinds of misconceptions, and I ended my participation when I failed to convince them they would kill the museum with that approach. Listening to Murph and his interesting presentation about what is happening now makes me want to get back involved.

The packet of information included a history of the finances of the museum and how the rental fees and other operating costs effectively ate up the initial “seed” money from a Kaiser-Hill LLC grant and congressional appropriation arranged with the help of then Senator Wayne Allard. A problem surfaced when DOE directed that none of that appropriation could be used for fund raising, which resulted in the money being drawn down without mechanisms being developed to replace it. To get to the point, funding of a permanent museum is the overreaching problem. There are large amounts of artifacts that could be used to build something that would be worthy of the value the plant had in helping defend the nation during the Cold War while also helping to build the communities in the Front Range that would not be as vibrant if there had never been a plant.

Murph gave a passionate description of the governmental agencies and people he has contacted to help with development of a viable museum. He convinced me I should participate in some form. My initial reaction is to offer research support that will be useful to understanding why the country decided the Rocky Flats Plant was needed to develop a nuclear deterrence to the risk of Soviet aggression. I intend to offer to provide segments of the book I’m drafting about the history of nuclear weapons and why the country decided Rocky Flats was needed for the monthly newsletters. I’ll be interested in what happens next.

Plutonium in Soil near Rocky Flats

Posted on by

There has been recent controversy about whether cities and counties will contribute to construction of a bridge and underpass for hiker and animal access to the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge as described in a recent commentary. Some cities and counties are planning to collect soil samples of the area “to determine whether the trail would be safe.” Those cities and counties might want to save their money and take a look at the information included in the most recent Rocky Flats Museum Newsletter. “The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) years ago determined that additional sampling at the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant is not required because vast amounts of data regarding plutonium contamination at and near Rocky Flats had already been gathered.” “During characterization and remediation projects at the former Plant Site, about 1.3 million analyses were compiled from approximately 7,230 surface soil sample locations and from about 15,890 subsurface soil samples.”

Perhaps the massive characterization of plutonium in soil around the plant is less important than the assessment of health risk. The same State report concluded that there was “…an excess cancer risk below one in a million for any exposure scenario. There was essentially no plutonium in the subsurface soils of the Refuge. Because of these very low concentrations, no remediation was required in the Refuge portion of the former Plant Site.”

Another Colorado Department of Health and Environment report describes the extensive off-site sampling conducted over many years by many different agencies. One off-site study collected 144 surface soil samples from a 38-square mile area to the north, east, and south of Rocky Flats. Only 19 of the samples found plutonium concentrations above background levels. Perhaps the people who continue to try to frighten people about plutonium around Rocky Flats should move on to spend their energies on something that might have some value.

Doing Something That Doesn’t Work For Five Hundred Years

Posted on by
Drunkenness of Noah - a problem that's been with us a long time

Drunkenness of Noah – a problem that’s been with us a long time

Author Susan Cheever sets out to fill a gap in American History with Drinking in America, Our Secret History, and her personal life doubtlessly influences her writing. A third of the way through the book, Cheever writes of her own family’s battle with alcohol and notes that “alcoholic families are nightmarish places, heartbreak machines in which the innocent fare worse than the guilty.” She herself stopped drinking when “brought to my knees by alcoholism.” Authors of straight history “texts” don’t get personal in the body of their work.

Despite her family, Cheever acknowledges that alcohol, and the “unstoppable” “crazy courage,” “both brilliance and incompetence” of drunks, has contributed to America. Drinking has led to American disasters and triumphs. “Rum could make you brave, confident, and scornful of conventional obstacles.”

She offers excellent retellings of many familiar pieces of history: the Pilgrims and Puritans (not the same people at all!), the Revolution, Civil War, woman’s suffrage and Prohibition, Kennedy’s assassination – with vivid details I had never read. The idea that some of the Pilgrims’ difficulties were due to most of them being drunk (by modern standards) almost all the time is intriguing. And you’ll find some famous names revealed as heavy drinkers, along with others who hated alcohol and drunkenness, beginning with the Pilgrims. Reviewers on Amazon point out Cheever’s speculation and factual errors (“riddled” says one), and her book isn’t footnoted like a text would be, but it’s worth your reading time.

But I’d like to note her comments on history. While there have been historians seeking to push an agenda or prove a point, “modern history, for the most part, claims to be objective… observant neutrality occasionally punctuated with some wise commentary. There are many advantages – no ax to grind, no idea to sell, no political point to make. But there are disadvantages… Historians miss a lot.”

This view of history limits our perspective. She notes that, after reading “hundreds of indexes and tables of contents, and dozens of books… [she finds that] few historians even mention drinking and its effects.”

I assume historians skip across drinking in history, in part, because ascribing any positive outcome to drunkenness is embarrassing – or at least, counterintuitive. The idea that inebriation was part of daily life for men, women, and children (!) as well as founding fathers and Nobel winning authors simply doesn’t click.

Yet it seems to me that the truth is worth knowing, and Cheever’s book offers something to add to my view of history. It does reinforce my basic feeling that The War on Drugs is a mistake, and I try to be skeptical of books that confirm my pre-existing biases. But even punishments from the 1600s that would be considered torture today didn’t stop drunkenness, which pretty much agrees with the effects of modern punishments on drug addicts. Perhaps, by ignoring an element of history, we are repeating it.

Rocky Flats Cook v. Rockwell Case

Posted on by

I posted a commentary two weeks ago about the tentative $375 million settlement of a lawsuit filed about 26 years ago by landowners near the plant (it requires approval by a judge). I was unaware that the settlement had been in the works for almost a year. A June 24, 2015 article by Alison Frankel gives details of the history of what has come to known as the Cook V Rockwell Case and what led to the recent announcement. A quick summary is that:

  • In 2005 a jury decided a class of property owners near Rocky Flats deserved multi-million dollar compensation for damage the plant had done to their property
  • In 2011 the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, ruling the “…trial judge was too expansive in instructing the jury about what constitutes a nuclear incident” and that there was no proof of actual damage
  • In June 2015 a different 10th Circuit panel ruled two to one to “…gave back what the appeals court took away in 2011”

I’ll provide my simplistic (with help from people closer to the case) explanation. The jury verdict was based on the fact that the original lawsuit was filed under the Price-Anderson federal law involving claims against nuclear facilities for “nuclear incidents.” The jury verdict in favor of the homeowners was overturned because Price-Anderson requires proof of actual damage, and not just a “perception of damage.” The ruling by the new panel determined that the restrictions on determining damages should be based on Colorado “nuisance laws,” which have a much lower burden of proof. The plaintiff lawyers told the panel “…they didn’t need to retry the nuisance claims because the jury had already reached a nuisance verdict…” (I’ll argue with that, since the reason the jury’s verdict was vacated was that the judge had given incorrect instructions.)

Regardless of what happened previously, apparently Dow, Rockwell, and the Department of Energy determined that new determination by the 10th Circuit panel forced them to settle a case that had no real legal basis or actual damages. My warning to them, made with no actual knowledge of legal things, is that they have opened up new liabilities that are already being worked. A group calling themselves “Rocky Flats Downwinders” have initiated “…a community survey designed to compile health impacts of those living in the area.” They say they are “…hoping to hear from anyone who lived here during the time of 1952 through 1992,” They think publicity from the settlement between Rocky Flats and homeowners will spark more interest, “We think we can piggy back on that in terms of using the information that is going to be learned through the claimant process.” Metro State University of Denver, University of Colorado and Colorado State University professors will study the surveys and compile the data from the former residents, who must have lived in the area from the plant east to Interstate 25 during the years the plant was in operation.

My prediction is that trial attorneys all over Colorado are studying the nuisance laws and licking their chops over the idea court awards can be made against companies and individuals who can be sued for perceived or maybe even real nuisances. I’m curious about the amount of my eventual award regardless of the fact I was well informed about the lack of any risk from Rocky Flats when I bought our current home downwind of the plant and moved in with my family. I doubt this is the last of the story.

National Academy of Sciences Reports Genetically Modified Food is Safe

Posted on by

The report concludes that “Genetically engineered crops appear to be safe to eat and do not harm the environment…” However, it is certain the report does not end the controversies. An organization of companies selling genetically modified seeds observes the report demonstrates “…that agricultural biotechnology has demonstrated benefits to farmers, consumers, and the environment.” However, Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union “…pointed to the lack of a significant increase in yield.” Several carefully worded statements in the report leave the door open to critics of GMOs. For example, it says “…foods made from such crops do not appear to pose health risks, based on chemical analysis of the foods and on animal feeding studies…” Critics will focus on the “do not appear” part of the statement and will add that the report also “…says many animal studies are too small to provide firm conclusions.” Those kind of criticisms are certain to continue despite the fact that “…several other regulatory, scientific, and health organizations have previously also concluded the foods are safe.”

The report does address the myth that GMOs have harmed the environment, to include monarch butterflies. It says there is “…no conclusive evidence of a cause-and effect relationship between G.E. crops and environmental problems. It says it has not been proved that the increased planting of such crops is indirectly responsible for the decline of the monarch butterfly.” I’ll warn that no one will go back and delete Internet stories that GMOs are killing butterflies.

My favorite part of the article is a quote from a professor who is a proponent of biotechnology. “The inescapable conclusion, after reading the report, is the G.E. crops are pretty much just crops. They are not the panacea that some proponents claim, nor the dreaded monsters that others claim.”