Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant

In 1957 there was a major fire at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver, Colorado, followed by another major fire in 1969. Both of these fires resulted in radioactive material being released into the atmosphere, with the 1957 fire being the more serious of the two. The emission of radiation was not reported until the 1970s, and as of 2011 the U.S. Government continues to withhold data on post-cleanup contamination levels. Elevated levels of plutonium have been found in cancer victims living near the Rocky Flats site, although no long-term studies of contamination and its effect on health are being held as of 2011.

Rocky Flats Plant fires

With substantial impact on the Greater Denver Metropolitan Area, including downtown, during the Cold War the Rocky Flats Plant nuclear weapons production facility was built with high security conditions by the U.S. Government -- but without consulting local or state authorities for permission -- 16 miles to the northwest of Denver. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, only employees knew of the work being done there, and even they had only a working knowledge of their specific responsibilities. The general public was kept entirely uninformed.

Plutonium, used to construct the weapons' fissile component, can spontaneously combust at room temperatures in air, and a major plutonium fire in 1957 and another in 1969 occurred at Rocky Flats that spread radioactive contamination throughout the northwest corridor of Denver.

No warning, advisement or cleanup was provided to the public in the 1957 fire, the worse of the two major fires. Estimates for the amount of plutonium released to the environment vary between tens of grams and hundreds of kilograms. In all, hundreds of plutonium fires and intentional incinerations occurred at Rocky Flats that were not nearly as destructive.

Additionally, thousands of 55-gallon drums of nuclear waste from milling operations were stored outside, where they corroded and leaked radionuclides over years into the soil and water.

In the 1969 fire an explosion also occured, this time within the ventilation system whose filters had initially trapped a good deal of escaping plutonium oxide before they were in turn destroyed. Rocky Flats officials denied that criticality had ever taken place at their facility, but no other credibile source for these elements exists.

After operating for 40 years, only ending after great public protest and a combined FBI and EPA raid in 1989 that stopped production, the Rocky Flats Plant was declared a Superfund site in 1989 and began its transformation to a cleanup site in February 1992. Removal of the plant and surface contamination was largely completed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Nearly all underground contamination was left in place in order to mitigate costs to the U.S. Government, who provided liability indemnification to the defense contractors involved.

Reporting of contamination

Radioactive contamination extending well throughout the downtown Denver area and beyond from Rocky Flats was not publicly reported until beginning in the 1970s by way of isopleth maps showing the contamination in millicuries of plutonium per square kilometer (Carl J. Johnson, Cancer Incidence in an Area Contaminated with Radionuclides Near a Nuclear Installation, AMBIO, 10, 4, October 1981, page 177 and Table 3).

Independent researchers also discovered caesium-137 and strontium-90 near the Rocky Flats plant, providing evidence to the suspicion that the 1957 fire and explosion had involved a criticality accident.

Withheld records

Post clean-up final contamination levels measured by the U.S. government, and those reported to an impanelled grand jury, are sealed records and have not been reported to the public. Denver area key leaders in both educating the public and pursuing contamination information that remains withheld by the U.S. Government include Dr. Leroy Brown, a Boulder scientist, retired FBI Special Agent Jon Lipsky, who led the FBI's raid of the Rocky Flats plant to investigate illegal plutonium burning and other environmental crimes and Wes McKinley, who was the foreman of the grand jury investigation into the operations at Rocky Flats and is today a Coloradao State Representative.

Effects on health

Despite the fact that elevated levels of plutonium have been found in dead bone cancer victims such as 11 year-old Kristen Haag, whose home was six miles away from Rocky Flats, related long-term health studies for the general population of the Greater Denver Metropolitan Area do not exist and are not on-going as of 2011.

An early, focused study by Dr. Carl Johnson, health director for Jefferson County, showed a 45 percent increase in congenital birth defects in Denver suburbs downwind of Rocky Flats compared to the rest of Colorado. Moreover, he found increased cancer rates for those living closer to the plant, and he estimated 491 excess cancer cases whereas the DOE estimated one. Real estate interests pressed the county to fire Johnson, claiming his findings hurt their industry. After electing a real estate investor to the county board, they succeeded.

Other effects

Denver's automotive beltway to this day lacks for a component in the northwest sector due to this radioactive contamination, which prevailing winds have blown towards downtown both at the time of the fires and over time. As plutonium has a 24,000-year half-life, nearly all of the contamination not removed by remediation continues to exist in the Denver area environment in both scattered and contained forms. U.S. Government efforts to make the area surrounding the former plant into the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge have been controversial due to the pervasive contamination, much of which is underground and not remediated.