Rocky Flats is no stranger to protests. When the plant was still in operation, anti-war demonstrations drew crowds in the thousands. Now thirteen years have passed since the cleanup concluded, yet concerns over the health and safety of the site remain.
Seven school districts have banned field trips to the refuge and two lawsuits against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still pending, one led by the town of Superior and one led by several activist groups who want to see the site closed to the public.
“When I first got involved with Rocky Flats…I wanted to end the production of nuclear weapons,” said LeRoy Moore, founder of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, one of the five groups involved in the lawsuit. “But as soon as I got involved I realized that if we could get rid of nuclear weapons we were going to end up with a very contaminated environment.”
Moore—who celebrated his 87th birthday in 2018—has been concerned about Rocky Flats since his first protest on the nuclear weapons plant in 1979, sitting on railroad tracks to block trains from coming in and out of the facility.
He participated as a stakeholder in the future site use working group, which made recommendations to the Department of Energy in 1995 regarding the coming cleanup and eventual purpose of the site, but he felt that his recommendations were ignored.
Through their lawsuit, Moore’s organization wants to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct an updated environmental impact statement. The most recent statement was published in 2004, right before the cleanup was complete. Moore says this does not accurately reflect the current state of the site, which has since been disturbed by human and animal activity.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has stated that contamination levels for the site are within regulatory standards, but Moore says that isn’t good enough.
“Any exposure to ionizing radiation is potentially harmful,” Moore said. “In other words, there’s no safe dose of exposure to radiation.”
Data collected from the Department of Public Health and Environment showing plutonium concentrations in the surface soil of the refuge.
One nearby resident decided to see for himself what the radiation risk was at Rocky Flats.
David Wood had lived just outside of Denver since 1982 and was aware of the nuclear weapons plant during its operation. He didn’t give it much thought until five years ago, when he began to consider moving to Candelas, a development right off the boundary of Rocky Flats.
“I did the first thing that anybody would do,” Wood said. “Which was to google it.”
Wood discovered a slew of conflicting statements regarding Rocky Flats, with many websites warning that the refuge was unsafe to live by. Concerned and determined to see for himself if Candelas was safe, he took three soil samples from the lot he was considering and had them tested for plutonium by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The samples came back as less than the minimum detectable amount, but Wood wanted to go even further. He bought a Geiger counter, used to detect radiation, and took measurements from not only his lot in Candelas but in other areas as well. He found that the readings in Candelas sat mid range compared to other parts of Colorado.
“The highest measurement I found was at my flower bed in Lakewood,” said Wood.
Wood was satisfied with his findings and purchased the lot, but his research into Rocky Flats didn’t end there.
When he retired as a professor of physics at the School of Mines in 2017, he launched into a seven month long investigation, compiling data and scientific articles. He wanted to lay out all the arguments that he felt proved the safety of the refuge in a clear, non-technical way so that the information would be more accessible and easy to understand. Wood published it all on a website hoping to help inform prospective homeowners in Candelas.
“I just didn’t want anyone else to have to wade through all that gobbledygook and misinformation that’s out there,” Wood said.
While Wood’s research made him feel assured that the refuge was clean, another nearby resident’s digging only gave her more anxiety.
“That’s the thing that I have found about Rocky Flats,” said Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish, founder of Candelas Glows and a resident of Rock Creek, a neighborhood on the opposite side of the refuge from Candelas. “It’s like the deeper I get into knowledge about it the more concerning it is.”
Gabrieloff-Parish studied under Joanna Macy, an environmentalist who created the concept of “Nuclear Guardianship”, an idea advocating nuclear disarmament and active monitoring of radioactive materials. It was Macy who suggested that she look into Rocky Flats, and once she did she became uneasy about not only herself living so close to the refuge, but the signs for the Candelas development.
Candelas Glows was created as an awareness raising campaign, a way for Gabrieloff-Parish to let future homeowners know the controversy behind the refuge. However, things quickly intensified when she was threatened with a lawsuit by the developers.
“Then I had to go back and really dot my I’s and cross my T’s about everything I had said. A lot of people wanted me to back down and be quiet and not deal with this lawsuit,” Gabrieloff-Parish said. “I just felt like I couldn’t back down and let there not be evidence that this place was controversial.”
One of the things that frightened Gabrieloff-Parish the most about her research was the 2,600 pounds of plutonium designated as “Material Unaccounted For” for during the operation of the plant. The Department of Energy asserted that the missing inventory wasn’t buried anywhere on site and explained that the plutonium could have escaped into ducts, been shipped off or incorrectly measured due to human error. However, in applying for a search warrant for the 1989 raid, the F.B.I. cited evidence of the illegal dumping of waste.
With uncertainty about the location of the missing plutonium, Gabrieloff-Parish worries about the safety of her three kids, whose school is within a mile and a half of the refuge. She said that they are the reason that she will continue to advocate for closure of the site to the public.
“Let’s not even discuss and debate if the science is sound. Let’s just say it’s safe. But will it be safe tomorrow once animals have trampled on it or people dig on it or crash their bikes on it? Or we have another flood or a drought?” said Gabrieloff-Parish.
The Rocky Flats Paradox 