Category Archives: Water Conservation and Policy

Colorado Environmental Film Festival—Rocky Flats

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Part I of this posting discussed the content in two of the movies at the festival about water use and misuse.  This posting will be about two movies that discussed Rocky Flats worker illnesses and plutonium contamination near the former nuclear weapons plant.

The second movie shown was “Rocky Flats Legacy” by Scott Bison, and it is about former workers fighting for compensation for illnesses they believe were caused by exposures while working at the plant. I know people who were in this movie, which made it personal and distressing.

As I wrote in “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked,” I sympathize with people who are dealing with devastating diseases. I also understand the frustration and anger of dealing with government bureaucracies. I don’t know how many of the people would have gotten sick anyway, or how to sort out which of them got sick because of workplace exposures at Rocky Flats. However, In Chapter 27 of my book I quote a study of Rocky Flats workers that, “When compared with U.S. death rates, fewer deaths than expected were found for all causes of death, all cancers, and lung cancer. No bone cancer was observed.” These results are remarkable because 26 percent of the workers in the study had some level of plutonium “body burdens.”  I received a criticism that I neglected to mention there were a few kinds of cancer that were higher than the general population. There were very few cancer categories that were higher, and those results were slightly higher. However, statistics are meaningless to someone who has been told they have cancer and can’t prove whether or not exposures at Rocky Flats were the cause.

There were comments in the third film, “No Water to Waste” by Chris Garre, about plutonium contamination at and near Rocky Flats. The film stated there was no way to determine how much plutonium was left behind when the plant was closed and demolished, because the documents on that subject “were sealed.” I would suggest that the film maker didn’t do much investigation, because anyone who wants to research the subject can find more than they would ever want to read in the numerous public documents created during the closure process involving DOE, the EPA, the State of Colorado, and the Kaiser-Hill Company.

The basis of the statement might be from a story floating around that the government sealed 65 boxes collected during the raid of Rocky Flats that “would reveal the truth.” I am convinced that the people in the Justice Department who orchestrated the raid would have eagerly indicted people if there had been actual crimes proven in the “mysterious 65 boxes.” There was an opportunity to look at the boxes that wasn’t taken. Ann Imse wrote in the Rocky Mountain news that no one had requested a review of any of the boxes of documents three months after the U.S. attorney said he would consider allowing Rocky Flats cleanup officials to see the Grand Jury records. The Colorado regulator overseeing the cleanup said he didn’t have the time to look at them. It’s too bad a review wasn’t requested, because those “mysterious 65 boxes” are now part of a conspiracy theory that won’t die until someone looks at the boxes and finds the contents to be just as boring as the content of the other thousand or so boxes sent to the Justice Department by the plant. (I expect my book would have sold many more copies if I had decided to make it a fiction story about horrid crimes at Rocky Flats. The book reveals a less exciting and truthful story.)

Back to the movie, there was a recent news article pertinent to what was presented. A Boulder Camera article, “Study: Rocky Flats contamination still high,” by Laura Snider reports that samples collected by the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center found that “…the area is as contaminated by radioactive plutonium as it was 40 years ago.” The group apparently collected the samples to combat building a parkway past the area, and, in my opinion, confirmed at least three points. One is that the results reported by the site, Colorado, and EPA 40 years ago were accurate. Another is that the plutonium hasn’t blown downwind. The final point is that Colorado Health and EPA officials “…insist the amount of plutonium contamination at the eastern edge of the site is well below levels that would be dangerous to human health.”

On the subject of how much plutonium is dangerous, I considered commenting to the gathering at the Golden Hotel that it is too late for anyone wanting to avoid plutonium contamination. All humans have billions, trillions, or quadrillions of plutonium atoms in their bodies from the many tons scattered around the earth from atmospheric testing.

Colorado Environmental Film Festival—Water Use and Misuse

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Friends invited us to join them for dinner in Golden Colorado at the Golden Hotel and the three films that were to be shown at the same location later in the evening. The main attraction at the restaurant is a special Coors beer called “Barmen’s Pilsner.” We were warned that the beer would take a “seven minute pour” before serving. We accepted, and two of four (who aren’t frequent beer drinkers) decided it wasn’t so special. We probably would have been judged to have ordered inappropriate meals by many who later attended the movies. Three of us ordered the prime rib special and the other ordered the immensely tasty and calorie-packed macaroni and cheese (lots and lots of cheese!) with lobster and bacon. The time at the restaurant was the highlight of the evening, since the movies weren’t nearly as much fun.

We made our way into the well-attended viewing room with our $5 dollar tickets to watch the three movies, and I’m going to do two postings to cover my comments. This posting will be about water use. The second will be about people with diseases who worked at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant and plutonium contamination in the area of the plant.

The first film, and my favorite, was “Chasing Water” by Peter McBride. The director grew up in Western Colorado, and decided to follow the Colorado River to determine how long it would take for water flowing back to the river from the irrigation on the family hay ranch to reach the Sea of Cortez. A friend paddled the river while he mostly viewed and filmed the river from private planes. The river ran dry in Mexico in 1998 because of “too many straws drinking out of the river.” It is now dry about 90 miles short of the ocean. The answer to when water from the ranch would reach the ocean is “never.”

The third movie, “No Water to Waste” by Chris Garre, (which finished third in my voting) presented several issues, including Colorado Front Range water supplies and uses. The movie, criticizes Denver Water Board plans to enlarge Gross Reservoir. Apparently building the dam for the reservoir in 1954 wasn’t an environmental disaster, but making it taller would be. The movie makes the point that available water should be used more wisely instead of increasing capacity. There were shots of urban sprawl and discussion of planned development. One question asked by a member of the audience after the movie was whether the director thought development should be ended or curtailed, and he replied something to the effect that would be difficult. People will continue to be attracted to the area.

There was a recent article by Bruce Finley in the Denver Post about failure of a Wyoming pipeline that would bring water to the Denver metropolitan area to receive an initial permit. There is a table showing average gallons of water used per-capita by seventeen Colorado cities. People who have been made to feel guilt about how much water they use should take heart. The statewide average use declined from 214 gallons per person in 1990 to 167 gallons in 2008.

I’ll close with that comment as I work on what to say about the Rocky Flats issues included in the second and third movies.