Category Archives: Rocky Flats Plant

Jefferson County Parkway and the Rocky Flats Plant II

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This is an update based on a news article published in the Arvada YourHub the day after the original post. The article by Karen Groves says that Golden has withdrawn their support for the project and filed suit “…challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to transfer land from the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge to the proposed Jefferson Parkway toll highway.”  Golden had originally agreed to the road after being offered $57 million for traffic and noise mitigation after “…months of negotiations between Golden and parkway proponents (Jefferson Country, Arvada, The Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, and the Colorado Department of Transportation to reach an agreement.” Golden official decided to file the litigation after an outcry from citizens despite the fact “…the outcome would be expensive and uncertain.”

Golden citizens mentioned the “…danger of plutonium disturbance…” during construction of a highway next to the site where the Rocky Flats Plant built nuclear weapons components for the military. I will reiterate my comments that I disagree with the contentions about the risk from the plutonium. The entire world and all inhabitants are contaminated with plutonium from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. Details about that and the Rocky Flats Plant’s record of plutonium releases are discussed in Chapter 25 of “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked.”

The battle over a parkway has been going on for decades. I recently received a message from a former Rocky Flats Plant official mentioning that proponents of various parkway options had wanted public support from the plant in the late 1980s while Greenpeace had requested they officially oppose the project.

Jefferson Country Parkway and the Rocky Flats Plant

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There has been long-time opposition to completing the metropolitan beltway by constructing a parkway for vehicles and bicycles on the eastern edge of the site where the Rocky Flats Plant once constructed plutonium components for nuclear weapons. There was a previous posting about the controversy, which is mostly about the plutonium contamination in the area of the proposed parkway. I’ve exchanged emails with the group that was formed to oppose the parkway to discuss and disagree with their contentions about the risk from plutonium. Chapter 25 of the book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked,” gives detailed information about plutonium releases from the plant, and there was much less released than critics would like you to believe. The bottom line is that plutonium is everywhere from the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and disputing construction of the parkway on the basis of plutonium contamination is, in my opinion, a flawed argument.

A recent article in the Denver Post by Bruce Finley describes recent developments. Some of the long-time opponents of the Parkway have recently changed their positions because of a proposed land swap that would open more public open space and lock in “…an open-space bridge to the mountains.” “The emerging green ring around Denver includes Rocky Flats, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Barr Lake State Park, Cherry Creek State Park, Chatfield State Park and seven or so county and municipal parks set against the foothills.”

The city of Golden recently modified a proposal to create a bicycle and pedestrian trail where the parkway is proposed to be constructed. They then withdrew their opposition to the toll road after being promised $57 million for traffic and noise mitigation. However, the town of Superior plans to file a lawsuit to block the swap because of failure “…to conduct a sufficient review of likely environmental impacts…”

An article in Westword by Patricia Calhoun titled, “Plans for the Jefferson Country Parkway are kicking up lots of dust,” expresses some skepticism. The regional director of Fish and Wildlife commented, “Accepting this exchange proposal will significantly expand the Rocky Flats NWR (National Wildlife Refuge) not only for the benefit of wildlife, but it will also anchor a network of green space for the people of the Denver metro area to enjoy for years to come.”

The author then adds, “If you don’t mind a little radioactive dust in your picnic.”

The article also provides more detail about the basis for Superior’s lawsuit. “The conclusion of the environmental assessment should have been that a full study leading to an Environmental Impact Statement was necessary to fully understand and evaluate the impact of the expansion of the refuge and the building of a four-lane toll road.”

I’ve told opponents of the toll road that I am not taking a position; several friends are opposed to the road. My position is that opposing the road because of plutonium contamination in the area of the proposed construction is a very weak argument.

First Anniversary for RockyFlatsFacts.com

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We launched  the web site in November 2010, so this posting is a bit late. The “About” link of the web site describes that we established this site to share a book about the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production plant in Colorado titled “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked.”  We consider that to be a success. We didn’t add a counter to the link for the book until a couple of months after it posting it, but there had been over 2000 views of it by the end of November. Several of my colleagues at Rocky Flats told me they had been forwarded electronic versions of the book, which wouldn’t show up on the counter. There have also been a couple hundred paperbacks sold by Amazon to those who prefer to hold a real book. We’re quite proud that four people have chosen to review the book and gave it excellent ratings (one reviewer gave it four stars and three others gave it five stars). There is also a Kindle version of the book, which has numerous photos.

The only other link with a counter on the web site is the blog, and there were about fifteen thousand visits to that link between January and November. We did 64 postings the first year, and have approved 246 comments. We blog about just about anything that we think is interesting, and the history category wins the most postings with 20. That makes sense, since I often refer to myself as an “amateur historian.” There were 17 postings about the Rocky Flats Plant. Other popular posting subjects were historical figures, current events, and economics.

There is a link on the web site for book reviews. There were 52 postings (which is consistent with the goal of posting a review each Wednesday).  I think my favorite review is the first one posted about “Venona, Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr.

The greatest challenge in doing reviews is that I don’t want to do a book the disservice, and have often had to post reviews in multiple parts. I’ve convinced myself I really should work at restricting a review to no more than two typed pages. We’ll see whether I have the discipline to follow that guideline.

There have been 73 expressions posted, and several people helped me with ideas for that link. It is interesting to learn the origin of common expressions. An example is “making money hand over fist.” It turns out that one is literal, since it came from the process of making coins by pounding blanks of metal with a template.

Thanks to everyone who helped me get this going, the people who have provided me suggestions for improvement and content, and the people who take the time to read the posts.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I intend to search for content that has interest and value and to work at writing and editing with care. My New Year resolution is to work at respecting your time if you choose to read what has been posted.

J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge

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I was interested in the refuge on Sanibel Island barrier partly because the area surrounding what had been the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapon production facility where I once worked has been designated a wildlife refuge.  The Sanibel refuge was created after Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling, a political cartoonist, urged Harry Truman to sign an executive order to create the Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge in 1945. The designation blocked the sale of land to developers.  The refuge was renamed after the pioneer conservationist in 1967. The refuge has over 6,400 acres of mangrove forests, sea grass beds, cord grass mashes, and West Indian hardwood hammocks. It makes up the largest portion of a total of five wildlife refuges on Sanibel with large populations of fish and the more than 220 species of birds and other critters that depend on fish for food.

Sanibel Island and the southwest coastal mainland of Florida were inhabited by Calusa Native Americans when Spanish explorers arrived and brought diseases that eventually mostly wiped out the tribe. It is thought a few might have made it to Cuba. The Calusa were still there in substantial numbers when Ponce de Leon organized a colonizing expedition using two ships that traveled to the southwest coast of Florida in 1521.  The word “Calusa” was described to mean “the fierce ones,” and in keeping with that description the tribe attacked the expedition.  Ponce de Leon was struck by a poisoned arrow, died of the wound in Havana, Cuba, and was buried in Puerto Rico.

We decided to take the narrated tram tour of the refuge which is operated by Tarpon Bay Explorers. The four mile tour is $13/adult and $8/child. You can pay five dollars to drive your own vehicle, but we decided we preferred the narration by an expert. Our guide was Barry Litofsky, and we were pleased with our decision to do the guided tour. We didn’t see any mosquitoes, but did get some bites from “No Seeums.” It would be a good idea to have insect repellant.

Barry said the most common question is, “Why do the mullet jump?” The fish were frequently jumping high enough to clear the water in the estuaries and landing with a splash. The answer to why they jump was something to the effect, “We don’t know. We don’t know how to ask a mullet.” However, the speculation is that they jump to dislodge sand that collects in their gills while they are bottom feeding.

We saw multitudes of birds, and I thought the two most memorable were a roseate spoonbill at a distance and an anhinga standing near the road with its wings spread to dry. The bird is called “snake bird,” because it leaves a ripple similar to that of a snake when it is swimming under water. The one we saw had a fishing lure stuck in its beak with a short piece of monofilament fishing line attached. There have been discussions on how to capture the bird and take it to the local rehabilitation center to remove the lure. The latest report is that the bird was never captured for removal of the lure and line. We are hoping that that the lure dissolved or fell out.

There are three bald eagle nests and over a hundred osprey nests on the island. Barry told us there are twelve types of small shore birds in the refuge, and they are collectively called “LBJ,” or “Little brown jobbies.”

Much of the discussion during the tour focused on the mangrove trees and their remarkable multiple roots that anchor them. There are three kinds of mangrove trees in Florida and Sanibel and many more in other parts of the world. The mangroves aren’t related except for the common trait that they live in salt water. All of them need to provide fresh water to their leaves. One type filters the salt out in the roots, another gets rid of the salt through pores on the leaves, and the other concentrates the salt in old leaves that then die.  All three methods are variations of the reverse osmosis process that provides fresh water to Sanibel residents and visitors.

The mangrove trees are protected in part because they provide impregnable resistance to hurricane winds. The guide told us that mangroves were removed from Captiva to plant citrus trees. Hurricane winds ripped out the trees and eroded a trench across the island. Another reason to protect the mangroves is that the network of roots provides a nursery for fish. The fish in turn feed the predators, including the many species of birds.

There are American alligators in the refuge, and there was one crocodile that died along with much of the snook (fish) population during a recent incredibly (for the area) cold snap. The crocodile had lived on the island for decades, and over 200 people attended its memorial service. One lonely bear has taken up residence. Barry pointed out half dollar-sized black crabs that had crawled up out of the estuary onto the trees.

There was an interesting discussion of the Sabal or Cabbage palmetto trees, which is the protected State tree of Florida. The center of the trees was used by the Calusa as food. Floridians continued harvesting the trees, especially during the Depression, and the food was commonly called “swamp cabbage.” However, the extreme tenderness earned it a reputation as a delicacy, and the name became “millionaire’s salad.” Almost all of the “hearts of palm” sold in the U.S. is from South America, with just under half coming from Brazil. The trees are grown commercially and harvested when they are about five feet tall at the age of a year or a bit more.

Fishing is allowed in the refuge, and it looked to me to be quite productive. We saw one man with a really large needle fish (three feet long?) Crabbing is allowed only with dip nets. We certainly would enjoy a return visit to the refuge, and I’m hoping next time I have some fishing equipment and the required license, of course. I’m also hoping funds become available to open the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge so I can take my family there for a visit.

The Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant Plea Bargain

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I’ve received comments from knowledgeable people that questioned some of the things I wrote in my book titled “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked.” It has been interesting to do additional research in an attempt to better understand the issues questioned. I mentioned in the book I do not consider myself to be a Rocky Flats expert; the plant was far too large and complex for anyone to claim to be an expert. The comments verify that observation.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the government raided the plant in June of 1989 with dozens of federal agents after delivering a search warrant alleging sensational environmental crimes. I was the Manager of Environmental Management, and was frightened because I thought something really terrible must have been happening to justify such a large and highly publicized raid. It wasn’t long before I realized the agents knew very little about Rocky Flats, and they didn’t seem to be on the trail of anything specific. I would later verify they quickly learned they had been duped by tips from uninformed people who disagreed with the mission of the plant. The investigators also had misinterpreted physical evidence that they believed proved some of the allegations. The eventual guilty plea by Rockwell International, the operator of the plant at the time of the raid, was based on trumped-up charges that had nothing to do with the search warrant. The government insistence on a plea bargain was driven, in my opinion, by officials unwilling to admit they had made an embarrassing mistake.

Comments from a former Rocky Flats contractor who is familiar with how corporations balance legal and business risks and a person who was a senior DOE manager both disagree with what I wrote answering why Rockwell agreed to plead guilty. I speculated they agreed to the plea bargain and to pay an 18.5 million dollar fine to save the reputations of Rockwell managers being threatened with indictment. Both of the commenters say it was a business decision. Rockwell had already accumulated significant legal costs, and those costs were continuing to increase by about a million dollars a month. Trials that could have lasted two or three years would not have been good for the corporate reputation regardless of outcome, and the media circus that would have been created would have been a distraction from other business matters.

There is disagreement on one issue. One person thought the government decided to force a plea bargain on Rockwell after they “went nuts” when there were indications the Grand Jury was considering indicting one or more Department of Energy Officials along with several Rockwell people. The DOE official says that isn’t true, because the threat of indictments from the Grand Jury came a year or two after the plea bargain, and that the government “…did not care about the indictment of federal employees.” That person believes the government’s motivation to settle was that they did not want trials “…to disclose the trumped up nature of their search warrant.”   I’m inclined to believe the opinion offered by the DOE official.

Changing subjects to one of the “crimes” included in the guilty plea, the DOE official disagreed with what I wrote regarding Rockwell agreeing to pay $2,000,000 in fines for failure to file a permit application for a waste storage area. Rockwell wrote in the report they provided to the court about the guilty plea that they had delivered the permit application to the DOE office, and had “…no knowledge of what happened thereafter until the application was filed by DOE, apparently six months later.” (United States District Court (Defendants) March 26, 1992, pages 54-55) The DOE official wrote the application submittal was delayed because what Rockwell gave to DOE was “woefully inadequate.” I’ve had several back and forth messages with several people to try to sort this out, and I now believe the commenter was referring to a different permit application that the one that resulted in the fine. What I’ve learned from this is confirmation that the permit application process was complicated and filled with opportunities for disagreement between Rockwell, DOE, and the federal agencies that would make it difficult to prepare a permit application and submit it on schedule.

What I haven’t found is why Rockwell was forced to pay a two million dollar fine for failure to submit the application when, according to the statement submitted by Rockwell to the court, it was DOE that failed to submit the application. The DOE official wrote that both Rockwell and DOE were responsible for filling the application. However, that wouldn’t explain why only Rockwell was held accountable for failure to meet the application submital schedule. I concede I don’t know whether the application was submitted late because what Rockwell provided was inadequate. Who did what or who was most at blame might continue to be in dispute, but it is a fact that this was a paperwork problem and not an environmental problem. No one has yet questioned my continued belief that the plea bargain was too absurd to stand up to any kind of scrutiny. John F. Seymour wrote in an article titled “U.S. v. Rockwell:  GOCO Assessed Criminal Fines for Violations at Rocky Flats,” in the summer 1992 Federal Facilities Environmental Journal, that “…the plea bargain involves relatively mundane and commonplace…violations.” The DOE official said it well, “One of the crazy aspects of our legal system these days is the assignment of felonies to what should be civil matters.”  I think a final comment from that person is a good closing. “I have told people that RFP (Rocky Flats Plant) was never as good or as bad as it was alleged.”

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.”