This memo analyzes some of the potentially criminal acts by the Justice Department and the Department of Energy (“DOE”) which obstructed the 1989-1992 Special Grand Jury investigation of Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. Based on a seven year Citizens’ Investigation, the writers - former FBI Special Agent Jon Lipsky; Rocky Flats Grand Jury Foreman and Colorado State Rep.-elect Wes McKinley; Rocky Flats whistleblower Jacqueline Brever; and their attorney Caron Balkany -- believe that this government deception is dangerous and illegal and has interfered with the development of a safe and thorough cleanup of Rocky Flats. The government deception about Rocky Flats – past and present - is endangering the public being invited to participate in recreation there. The writers believe that their documentation of some of the Justice Department and Department of Energy deception of the public, Congress and the Courts should result in extreme skepticism about current government assurances that the cleanup of dangerous contamination at Rocky Flats is protective of the public health.
Full Answer
Most of the triggers in our nuclear weapons stockpile were manufactured at Rocky Flats. ... The Rocky Flats Plant also processed plutonium for reuse and the space program, and manufactured depleted uranium defense-related components. The plant site was divided into three geographic areas, Flats site in June 1989 because of alleged environmental
Sep 10, 2012 · Attorney Peter Nordberg dedicated 16 years of his life to the Rocky Flats class-action lawsuit Cook v. Rockwell, and was present in the courtroom in 2006 when jurors awarded nearly 13,000 local ...
Rocky Flats, U.S. nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado, that manufactured the plutonium detonators, or triggers, used in nuclear bombs from 1952 until 1989, when production was halted amid an investigation of the plant’s operator, Rockwell International Corporation, for violations of environmental law.Rockwell subsequently pleaded guilty to charges of illegally storing and …
Aug 02, 2019 · Rocky Flats is located about 16 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado, at the base of the Rocky Mountains. About 70,000 plutonium pits, or the triggers for nuclear weapons, were manufactured there from 1952 to 1989 when the FBI raided Rocky Flats for violations of the Clean Air Act and federal hazardous waste laws, including illegal waste storage.
For forty years, the Rocky Flats Plant made plutonium cores for U.S. nuclear weapons. The plant was a government facility owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), but it was run by an outside contractor, first Dow Chemical and then Rockwell International.
Rocky Flats, U.S. nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado, that manufactured the plutonium detonators, or triggers, used in nuclear bombs from 1952 until 1989, when production was halted amid an investigation of the plant's operator, Rockwell International Corporation, for violations of environmental law.
There is still some residual contamination located at OU1, but studies show there is no health threat. Remediation of Rocky Flats was finished in 2006 and verified by the EPA and CDPHE in 2007 after ten years and almost $7 billion.
More than 800 structures had been decontaminated and demolished, including five major plutonium facilities and two major uranium facilities.
The 6,240-acre Rocky Flats Plant (USDOE) site is located about 16 miles northwest of Denver and 10 miles south of Boulder, Colorado. The Rocky Flats Plant operated from 1952 until 1989 as part of the United States' nationwide nuclear weapons complex.
Denver is actually more radioactive than many areas of Chernobyl according to a recent study. ... However, as the New York Times reported: “Many studies put the annual dose in Denver at over 10mSv.”Jul 4, 2019
Throughout the 1960s the number of barrels increased, reaching a maximum of number of 3,500 before they were removed, and strong winds continued to carry radioactive particles across Arvada and into Denver.May 6, 2017
Standley Lake Still, CDPHE explained that the water is safe for drinking since “most of the plutonium from Rocky Flats was in a form that does not readily dissolve in water.”Jun 29, 2017
It's an uncomfortable thing to think about but it's quite a low risk." Masters has crunched the numbers, and she said that even if you lived at Rocky Flats for 13 years and the soil everywhere had plutonium concentrations of 20 picocuries per gram, your risk of cancer would likely only increase by about one in 100,000.Oct 4, 2019
The City of Westminster has been monitoring Standley Lake for radioactivity since 1988, and all sample results have met drinking water standards. Water leaving the Rocky Flats site does not enter Standley Lake.
No operating nuclear reactors or NRC-licensed fuel cycle facilities are located in Colorado. Colorado is an Agreement State.
Known today as an urban national wildlife refuge, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal traces its beginnings to the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the United States into World War II. The U.S. Army constructed the Arsenal in 1942 to develop chemical weapons as a deterrent against the Axis Powers.
The Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge is 5,237-acre (21.19 km2) National Wildlife Refuge in the United States, located approximately 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Denver, Colorado. The refuge is situated west of the cities of Broomfield and Westminster and situated north of the city of Arvada.
The US plutonium bombs were produced by the more than 20,000 men and women who worked at Rocky Flats over the years.Jul 27, 2020
Calculations based on data from NCRP reports show that the average level of natural background radiation (NBR) in Rocky Mountain states is 3.2 times that in Gulf Coast states.
24,100 yearsThe different isotopes have different "half-lives" – the time it takes to lose half of its radioactivity. Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years and Pu-241's half-life is 14.4 years.
Los Alamos National Laboratory's pit production mission is underway. ... To this workforce, a pit is a hollow sphere of plutonium that, when uniformly compressed by explosives inside a warhead or bomb, causes a nuclear explosion. Los Alamos produced the first plutonium pits in 1945, during the Manhattan Project.Dec 12, 2021
Colorado's Radiation Levels are the Highest in the World. Colorado radiation levels are currently the highest in the world according to the Radiation Network based in Prescott, Arizona which has released a real-time map of the United States showing current radiation levels as reported by the GeigerCounters.Apr 11, 2011
Colorado has approximately 1,200 historic uranium mines, which produced over 63 million pounds of uranium from 1948 to 1978. In the past uranium mining and milling sites in Colorado have contaminated the air, soil, ground, and surface waters with toxic and radioactive chemicals.
TerraPower, which was co-founded by Bill Gates, recently selected a Wyoming site to demonstrate its first-of-a-kind Natrium nuclear reactor. Much of what Bill Gates does is put under a microscope.Dec 14, 2021
The Rocky Flats Plant was part of the nationwide nuclear weapons complex that manufactured nuclear weapons components under the jurisdiction and control of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies.
The Rocky Flats site is situated on a plateau at the eastern edge of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation close to 6,000 feet . Most of the property was used as a security buffer surrounding the site’s 385-acre industrial area.
In Colorado, CDPHE regulates RCRA/CHWA corrective action. Three successive federal facility agreements and compliance orders, beginning in 1986 and culminating with the Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement (RFCA)—signed by DOE, EPA, and CDPHE in July 1996—covered investigation and cleanup activities.
Not long afterward, he died unexpectedly from a heart problem, and he didn't live to see that decision overturned on appeal.
For Kristen Iversen, it's a burden she lives with, physically and psychologically, every day of her life. Iversen is the author of a new book on the subject -- Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats , a striking tale of innocence in a time and a place of great danger.
A September 11th Catastrophe You've Probably Never Heard About. In 1957, America narrowly averted a nuclear meltdown at the Rocky Flats plant in Colorado. A new book explores how close we all came to disaster. An interior view of the plutonium processing facility at Rocky Flats. (Library of Congress)
Virginia W. Gerde. Contributor to Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. See Article History. Rocky Flats, U.S. nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado, that manufactured the plutonium detonators, or triggers, used in nuclear bombs from 1952 until 1989, when production was halted amid an investigation of the plant’s operator, ...
Rockwell International Corporation, diversified American corporation that was formerly one of the country’s leading aerospace contractors, making launch vehicles and spacecraft for the U.S. space program. The main company was incorporated in 1928 as North American Aviation, Inc., a holding company for a number of….
Nuclear weapon, device designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two processes. Fission weapons are commonly referred to as atomic bombs. Fusion weapons are also referred to as thermonuclear bombs or, more commonly, hydrogen bombs; they…. plutonium.
In 1995 the DOE contracted the Kaiser-Hill Company to undertake an accelerated cleanup at a cost of $7.3 billion. However, the project did not aim to return the site to background concentrations of plutonium. Whether the remaining contamination constitutes a significant risk to public health is a matter of dispute.
It is the most important transuranium element because of its use as fuel in certain types of nuclear reactors and as an ingredient in nuclear weapons. Plutonium is a silvery metal that takes on…. Rockwell International Corporation.
On June 6, 1989, more than seventy FBI agents raided Rocky Flats, the first-ever raid of one federal agency by another. Led by FBI agent Jon Lipsky, the raid was based on more than two years of investigations inspired by information leaked by whistleblowers, including Jim Stone, an engineer laid off from the plant in 1986 whose case against Rockwell eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Stone had given a 1986 DOE memo to Lipsky noting that some of the hazardous waste treatment facilities at Rocky Flats were “patently illegal,” and that the plant was “in poor condition generally in terms of environmental compliance.” Stone warned that proper permitting measures weren’t being filed, waste was being improperly stored, and some plutonium was even missing. Along with an investigator from the criminal enforcement division of the EPA, Lipsky looked into all of the allegations, then prepared an affidavit that guided the raid. Agents took such a staggering amount of material during their three weeks at the plant that U.S. District Court Judge Sherman Finesilver decided to impanel the state’s first-ever special grand jury to focus on this single case.
And then on July 24, Mellen received an email from Kyle Brenton, assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s office where Mike Norton had negotiated the Rockwell deal thirty years before, that the grand jury documents were missing.
That’s what then-congressman Jared Polis told the U.S. House of Representatives on May 12, 2009, the fortieth anniversary of a fire at what was then called the Rocky Flats National Munitions Plant, sixteen miles upwind of Denver. “I rise today to commemorate one of the most fateful days in the history of the State of Colorado, ...
After the raid, Rocky Flats never made another nuclear trigger. The feds and Rockwell agreed to an early termination of the Rockwell management contract in September 1989, the day after the company filed a civil suit against the DOE, the EPA and the Department of Justice, arguing that the feds had failed to provide proper waste-disposal sites for radioactive materials. A week later, Rocky Flats was named a Superfund site, and EG&G signed a contract to operate the facility starting January 1, 1990.