Comments about Rocky Flats Book

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I published “An Insider’s Review of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked” free at the book link on this web site or as a paperback on Amazon a little less than a year ago. The centerpiece of the book is description of the government raid of the nuclear weapons component production plant with sensational allegations about environmental crimes while I was Manager of Environmental Management. The government raid and two and a half year Grand Jury investigation failed to find evidence of any of the crimes alleged in the highly publicized search warrant. However, the government managed to extract a trumped-up guilty plea and an $18.5 million fine from Rockwell, the contractor who operated the plant at the time, to save the reputations of Justice Department officials who had been duped by tips from people who didn’t like what the plant manufactured. I wrote on the back cover of the book, “An apology from the government to the people who worked at Rocky Flats is overdue.”

I was uncertain what kind of reception the book would receive, especially since it told a story much different than what had been widely reported by the media and was highly critical of government actions. The comments have been dominantly positive, with many compliments from fellow Rocky Flats employees. Some people contacted me to reinforce what I wrote about the FBI raid, the fact there wasn’t midnight burning or illegal discharges of toxins, and other events. I’ve also received positive comments from activists who protested the plant and others who were interested observers.

The first critical comment I received was, “I skimmed through your book and couldn’t help but notice that you cite ‘Ambushed Grand Jury’ as one of your sources, then cherry pick two sentences from that book to make it look as if the arguments in the book support your own. Really, aren’t you ashamed of yourself just a little?”  I responded to the message that I wasn’t ashamed of myself or the book and provided details about the several positive comments I made about the Grand Jury. I copied one of the authors of the “Ambushed Grand Jury,” but did not receive responses from either the commenter or the author.

The second critical comment was from a former DOE manager who took me to task for writing Dow tried to prevent using the 903 pad for outdoor waste storage. (Contamination from that storage area resulted in the largest amount of plutonium lost off site in the history of the plant.) I blamed the Atomic Energy Commission for the decision, but I now accept that Dow management also deserved its share of blame. What was done is easy to criticize with hindsight; it was a different world then with the country engaged in a nuclear arms race with the Soviets. The decision to store waste outside in barrels was consistent with the practices accepted in those times despite the fact that everyone now wishes things were done differently.  I’ve done more research, and posted a blog on September 14th that gives details of what I’ve learned so far. A short summary is that bureaucracy prevented both Dow and AEC from taking common sense actions to reduce the amount of plutonium dispersed.  I intend to keep looking for information on the subject.

I believe the criticism from the DOE manager was justified, but I wasn’t personally bothered by it. I wrote what I believed to be true based on the information I had been told by coworkers. The challenge caused me to dig into the issue in more detail, and I’m pleased to have now presented a more accurate assessment. However, I’ve now received a comment from a person I always respected that questions what I wrote about how the source involving a tritium release was identified. I wrote that the manager who had hired me called to suggest samples be collected from a glove box where some material from another site was processed. I wrote that I collected a sample as suggested, and that sample identified the glove box to be the source of the release. The responder wrote that he collected a sample, delivered it to me, and heard nothing about the results. He then brought a second sample to me, but still received no information. I have no reason to question the memory of this person, but I’m hoping that the first sample he mentions was delivered before the equipment needed to analyze for tritium been received and put into operation. I don’t recall receiving either sample from him, but have no doubt he delivered them to someone in the environmental testing laboratory. I assure everyone that I believed in the accuracy of what I was writing at the time I wrote and published it. I will take some solace from the fact the incident was too embarrassing to everyone who had believed the tritium couldn’t have been from the plant for any rewards to have been given to anyone involved in identifying the source.

I continue to solicit comments on my book or other stories about Rocky Flats. It was a huge, complicated place, and as I’ve written previously, there is no such thing as a “Rocky Flats expert.”

POSH

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This is the second time that I will post an acronym that isn’t really an acronym (the first being “TIP”). The story commonly told is that wealthy passengers would book ship berths “Port Out, Starboard Home.” I’ve heard and read that the advantage to changing sides of the ship was to be in the shade both directions or because the views were better in some circumstances. Regardless, the word was being used long before the acronym craze began. There are several competing ideas as to the origin of the word. It apparently is thought to have been used as English slang. I decided the most interesting possible origin was that Edward FitzGerald had a fisherman friend named Murray Posh, and he was described as a “swell in an 1892 novel.” Apparently posh then began to be substituted for swell.

Making a Real Killing—Operations, Legal Actions, and Controversies

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This is the second half of my review about the book by Len Ackland. The first half was about the history of homesteading and development of the area that included Rocky Flats by the Church family beginning in 1861 and the selection of part of their land for the construction of a new nuclear weapons production plant. This part of the review will briefly summarize what was written about early years of operation when the plant was more or less considered “invisible” to neighbors and the later years when accidents and incidents led to a precipitous decline in the reputation of the place.  I wrote that I would restrict myself to doing a non-editorializing review, and I succeeded at that in the first half of my review of the book. I disagree with some of what is mentioned in this half, and I intend to post a blog discussing those items. An asterisk indicates that you can read a differing view on the blog site. I suggest reading that blog and my book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked to get another perspective about Rocky Flats.

The first building constructed on the Rocky Flats site, was named “Building D”, and would eventually be called Building 991. The book calls it “…the atomic bomb assembly building.”* In those early days everyone working at the plant had to have a “Q clearance” issued after background investigations by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Building 771 was constructed later to allow a multitude of operations including the ability to process solutions containing plutonium, and it would be the location of the first major accident in 1957 resulting in an uncontrolled release of plutonium. A fire breached the filter plenums in the exhaust system until fire fighters brought it under control with water. The workers (there were about 2000 at the time) were concerned that the facility would not be brought back on line, and that their jobs would be lost. However, resources were dedicated to decontamination and repair, and the building was brought back into production. Not surprisingly, the fire created an increase in focus on safety. However, there was little outside attention given to the accident, in part because the official accident report issued by the AEC called it a “serious accident,” but didn’t name Rocky Flats. The accident had occurred within the memory of the harsh Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising in Hungary, which “…confirmed the regime’s brutality…” “Most Americans, including the managers and employees at Rocky Flats, accepted the notion that the United States had to win the nuclear arms race in order to defeat communism.” Continue reading →

Comments about the Book, “Making a Real Killing”

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The book by Len Ackland is a well-researched source of information about Rocky Flats that I recommend. I posted a two part review of the book on that link of this web site, and committed to not editorializing in writing that review. The first part posted 9/7/11 is mostly about the history of Rocky Flats tied to the Church family, and the second part posted 9/14/11discusses operations, legal actions, and controversies. This posting discusses my disagreements with some of what Mr. Ackland wrote, and I suggest reading my book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked” for another perspective. That book is available free on this web site or from Amazon. I’ve heard that “history is interpretive,” and the differences between Mr. Ackland’s presentation of the history of Rocky Flats and mine confirms that observation. I intend to provide the content of the two part review and this posting to Mr. Ackland

There is criticism in “Making a Real Killing” about the selection of the Rocky Flats site for construction of a new nuclear weapons component production facility.  The book says the AEC knew they wanted Denver to be the location, but they went through the motions of an open selection process. I’ve read the Project Apple report (the report about the selection of a site for the plant), and there were compelling reasons given in that report for selecting a Denver location.  All of the other locations in other states had high humidity, and the production processes needed low humidity. Denver also was judged to be a good location for attracting and housing skilled workers. The author observed that the evaluation used wind data from Stapleton Field, and that actual Rocky Flats wind data “…should have eliminated Rocky Flats…”  The Stapleton Field wind rose showed the wind blowing to the north just under a fourth of the time and to the south about ten percent of the time. The wind would be blowing toward a populated area at all times from either Stapleton Field, Rocky Flats, or from any of the other six Denver locations considered, including the alternate location adjacent to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. I posted a more detailed discussion of the Project Apple report on July 27, 2011.

The book mentions that “Building D,” which would later be designated Building 991, was the first built at Rocky Flats. The author calls it “…the atomic bomb assembly building.” Rocky Flats constructed components for atomic bombs, but no atomic bombs were assembled there.

The 903 pad was largest source of plutonium contamination released by Rocky Flats, and it is mentioned that the drums were removed from the pad in 1968. “Then, reflecting the same nonchalant approach to nuclear waste that led plant managers to create this temporary storage area in the first place, the field sat uncovered and subject to wind dispersion until July 1969. I have been challenged about the discussion in my book blaming AEC for the problems and stating that Dow argued against the pad and the way it was managed. That has led me to seek more information, and my search isn’t over. However, I’ve been consistently told that the paving project was held up for several months because engineering groups in the AEC Albuquerque Area Office and AEC headquarters were in dispute about the design of the cap that was to be added. Part of the delay was to complete a required Davis Bacon Act review. The act required that all federal construction exceeding $2,000 total cost must pay workers on-site no less than locally prevailing wages. I have been consistently told that there was frustration that the paving wasn’t completed more quickly, but I’ve found little evidence that the delay was caused by taking a “nonchalant approach.” I intend to continue looking for information about this issue, and hope to do a more detailed posting in the future.

There are several observations that worker safety and fire safety took a backseat to production, and the Building 771 fire in 1957 and the Building 776/777 fire in 1969 certainly proves there should have been more care taken with fire safety. I know that fire safety wasn’t ignored before the 1969 fire, because one of my tasks after that fire was to test remaining glove box windows to determine which ones contained fire retardants. The fire retardant windows were obviously installed for fire safety, but that didn’t prevent the windows in the lines affected by the fire from melting and burning. The retardants created dense smoke that made the efforts of the fire fighters much more difficult. The information about a million pounds of Benelex to provide radiation protection to workers contradicts at least in this one instance the inference that worker safety was downplayed, although the Benelex played a major role in the 1969 fire. Also on the subject of worker safety, interviews with Union officials often focused on that subject. I will point out that the Union found safety gave them significant leverage in getting concessions from management. The Department of Energy also discovered they could obtain substantial increases to funding by criticizing health and safety practices.

In my experiences, safety concerns were given priority over schedule; the need to operate safely was discussed at least daily. There was never a doubt that we were working with dangerous materials, and that care was required to protect ourselves and our coworkers. Of course there were nearly two decades of operations before I began my Rocky Flats career, so I can’t testify how things were then. However, I will remind that any discussion of why production schedules were important should include remembering the world situation while debating the need for Rocky Flats, what was made there, and whether production should have been given a high priority. I can see no debate that the people working at Rocky Flats were assigned a national defense mission that the military and government determined was a crucial.  Mr. Ackland provides a solid basis to justify why production was emphasized. He writes that the Joint Chiefs concluded in 1949 that the133 nuclear weapons stipulated in “…war plan Trojan…” wouldn’t be enough. By 1950, “The military’s plans meant ‘a greatly increased requirement for atomic weapons’.” In the 1960s, “Most Americans, including the managers and employees at Rocky Flats, accepted the notion that the United States had to win the nuclear arms race to defeat communism.”

The book mentions that the Pugwash Conferences “…founded by U.S. and Soviet scientists in 1957, advocated alternatives to a balance of nuclear terror between the two ‘superpowers’.”  What isn’t mentioned is that the Pugwash Conference was a front for the Soviet Union, (from Wikipedia) “…whose agents often managed to weaken Pugwash critique of USSR and instead concentrated on blaming the United States and the West.” Not mentioned in the book is the World Peace Council. That organization “…received $63 million in Soviet funding, criticized western armaments and weapons tests, and refrained from criticizing Russian arms.” Numerous peace groups were closely connected with the World Peace Council.

Mr. Ackland mentions the ballot initiative that Colorado voters approved to halt “peaceful” nuclear blasts in the state after the AEC detonated four atomic devices underground in western Colorado. I was surprised he didn’t mention that the 1982 ballot included a proposed amendment to the Colorado constitution to “…bring about the cessation of nuclear weapons component production in Colorado…” The proposal was defeated by 584,256 opposed to 326,550 in favor. Voters were said to have been influenced by the thousands of jobs at the plant and the positive economic impact for the Denver area. I think it is fair to point out that the people of Colorado were aware of what Rocky Flats was making by that time and knew of contamination released by the 1957 fire, the 903 pad, and the tritium incident. They choose jobs.

In the discussion of the tritium incident it is mentioned that Dow was criticized “…for its flat denials and inaction in trying to identify the tritium source.”  A Rocky Flats employee was quoted as saying “…I knew what was wrong. I knew Dow was lying,” I attended meetings when Colorado first reported elevated tritium levels downstream of Rocky Flats, and I was heavily involved with the investigation to identify the source of the tritium after the results were confirmed.  Dow and the AEC were both wrong when they denied the tritium came from Rocky Flats, but they did not lie. Tritium was not supposed to be involved in site operations. Material containing tritium was received from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and Rocky Flats was not informed that there was tritium in the material. I attended a meeting preceding a press conference about the release, and the Energy Research and Development (ERDA) manager (ERDA had replaced AEC) told us AEC had failed to control material, and that Dow was blameless in the matter.

Perhaps my strongest complaint about the book is some of the information in Chapter Fourteen titled “Rockwell’s Crimes.” I have no dispute with the statement that “…Rockwell International Corporation pleaded guilty to committing ten environmental crimes—five felonies and five misdemeanors—at Rocky Flats.” I will refer to my detailed descriptions and reasons for the guilty plea in my book, but I give a quick summary here. Rockwell was forced to plead guilty because the Justice Department was threatening to issue indictments that at least some of the prosecutors believed weren’t supported by the evidence. Rockwell knew indictments would ruin lives regardless of the outcome of a trial.  Mr. Ackland accurately writes, “Investigators failed to prove the most spectacular crimes alleged in the June 1989 search warrant.” What he doesn’t say is that the ten “crimes” in the guilty plea would not have been called crimes anywhere other than in a legal document designed to prevent government embarrassment. As examples, sewage treatment plants at places other than Rocky Flats often exceed their permitted discharge limits, and sometimes municipalities and other operators have had to pay fines for those exceedences. However, I am unaware of any other circumstance where the exceedences have been called crimes or where the fines levied were anywhere close to what Rockwell paid. My favorite “crime” was Rockwell pleading guilty to the fact that DOE had submitted a permit application  more than six months after Rockwell had provided it to them and six months after the date it was due. Rockwell pleaded guilty to inaction by DOE and paid a two million dollar fine. The intense scrutiny from a raid by dozens of federal agents and a Grand Jury investigation that lasted over two years found nothing that hadn’t been reported to the regulators before the raid. Rockwell helped save the reputations of embarrassed federal officials by paying millions of dollars in fines for elevated levels of non-toxic pollutants in sewage plant discharges and paperwork errors.

I wish Mr. Ackland would have mentioned that there was no off site impact from any of the ten “crimes,” that they weren’t mentioned in the search warrant, and they weren’t uncovered by the raid. They were “discovered” in official reports submitted by Rocky Flats to Colorado and EPA before the raid. I do credit Mr. Ackland with mentioning that the Radiological Assessments Corporation was hired by the state health department to analyze contamination released by Rocky Flats. He writes, “They haven’t found significant off-site contamination.”  I will point out that the final report said, “The records clearly indicate recognition of the need to control and limit radionuclide releases since the beginning of plant operations…none of the documentation included the occurrence of any previously unreported major events…” Is anyone else fascinated that no historian or investigative reporter has looked into the absurdity of the guilty plea forced on Rockwell?

Tips

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Our son had a semester of college in New Zealand, and he was taught there that the word was an acronym for “To Insure Prompt Service.” There are two problems with that. The first is that the practice of using initials to form acronyms didn’t predate the 20th century, and records of using the word goes back to 1610. The other problem is that “ensure” and not “insure” would be grammatically correct. (I’ve never seen “teps.”) There’s evidence that tipping with money goes back at least the Romans it could just as easily date to the invention of money. Records of employers giving tips to servants dates to the 1700s. Snopes declares that the description of the word as an acronym is false.

Can Low Level Radiation Exposure Prevent Cancer?

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Those who believe in the idea that radiation exposure is harmful at all levels would answer the question posed in the title “Absolutely not!” and they would probably add some comments that the question is absurd. I’ll be presumptuous to add they would say something such as, “Everyone knows any radiation exposure is harmful.” Those in that camp believe the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation can be estimated by linear extrapolation from effects caused by high doses, and that biological damage will occur unless the level is zero. Their position is supported by the linear no-threshold (LNT) theory adopted by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) in 1959.

However, those who believe in hormesis (the word derives from the Greek word “hormaein,” which means “to excite”) would observe that many substances such as alcohol and caffeine that can be lethal at high levels have stimulating effects at low levels. There is compelling evidence that the same is true for ionizing radiation. I’ll mention that there is a cottage industry of investigators funded by government-sponsored research money looking for information to support the LNT theory. There are those in that industry who won’t like the information I’m relaying. You should also expect skepticism from people who have been taught (inculcated) that any amount of radiation is bad despite the fact that the world we live in and our own bodies are radioactive.

I am a subscriber to Access to Energy by Dr. Arthur Robinson, and he published a copyrighted article titled, Radiation and Health, in his May 2011 newsletter. It summarizes a paper, Is Chronic Radiation an Effective Prophylaxis Against Cancer? The paper was originally published in the spring 2004 edition of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. The abstract of that article begins, “An extraordinary incident occurred 20 years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 (half-life 5.3 y) was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years and unknowingly received radiation exposure.

Intensive studies were performed on the health of the exposed people. It was found that, “Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person years. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under the age 19.” For comparison with people not exposed to the radiation in the buildings, “The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 per 100,000 person years…the prevalence rate of congenital malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children.” Stated a different way, there was about 3% of the number of cancer deaths for the exposed people compared to what was expected for those in the general population. Birth defects were about 6.5% of what would be expected. Deaths from cancer of people living in the buildings steadily decreased as the time of exposure increased, and had been nearly eradicated after twenty years.

One conclusion of the report was, “It appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure.” (Emphasis added). The journal that published the article was, according to Dr. Robinson, “… immediately savaged … In this case, however, the credential lovers are overwhelmed.”  He then provides a list of the 14 authors and includes their impressive credentials. Dr. Robinson then proposes that “human cancer deaths…can be reduced 20- to 30-fold by increasing whole-body radiation they receive from their environment.”