A right to know

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by Pamela White
(letters@boulderweekly.com)

One-millionth of a gram of plutonium will kill you. The stuff has a half-life of 24,400 years, meaning that even the tiniest particles of plutonium will be dangerously toxic long after the United States of America has ceased to be even a memory. Most of us, if we had the choice, would rather avoid any exposure to plutonium. And we sure as hell would want to know if we were at risk of exposure.

That's why Boulder County residents need to support House Bill 1079. The bill, carried by newly elected Rep. Wes McKinley, would require the public to sign informed-consent waivers before entering the soon-to-be-opened Rocky Flats site for recreation. HB 1079 would also require that information about the history of Rocky Flats and the health risks of plutonium be available on site.

McKinley is a genuine Colorado cowboy, and he lives nowhere near Rocky Flats. He might seem an unlikely person to carry a bill like this—except that he served as foreman of the special Rocky Flats grand jury that spent three years probing environmental crimes at the former nuclear weapons plant. For their hard work, McKinley and jury members were placed under a gag order and their indictments and presentment were ignored and sealed from the public's eye—together with thousands of key documents.

To put it simply, McKinley knows things about Rocky Flats that you and I will probably never be allowed to know. Stuck between the gag order and his pressing desire to share the truth, he ran for office, was elected and is now pushing to make certain that when the site is opened for public recreation, people won't become unwitting victims of deadly contamination.

For those who are new to the topic, Rocky Flats once produced plutonium pits—triggers for nuclear bombs. During that time, there were two documented plutonium fires, as well as whispers of secret research and willful environmental contamination. In 1989, the FBI raided the facility, gathering documents and interviewing countless witnesses about alleged environmental crimes committed by people working for Rockwell, the company that managed the facility. Although Rockwell was eventually fined as part of a plea agreement, no one was charged with a crime contrary to the grand jury's indictments, which remain secret as part of what critics say is a government cover-up.

After the raid, Rocky Flats became a Superfund site. Its mission changed from helping to build bombs to cleaning up the impacts of nuclear manufacturing. Although numerous advisory bodies and citizens' panels studied the issue and recommended the feds clean up the site so that plutonium levels equaled normal background levels, the feds rejected these recommendations for a plan that is limited by cost.

In other words, when the gates open, Rocky Flats will be as clean and safe as the government could make it for $7 billion. Various talking heads for the Department of Energy and Kaiser-Hill, the company entrusted with the cleanup, say this means Rocky Flats will be safe enough, with plutonium exposure from hiking, biking, horseback riding and hunting falling within limits.

In truth, it means only that Rocky Flats will be as safe as the feds felt like making it.

"The real driver for the Rocky Flats cleanup is cost, not risk," writes local Rocky Flats expert Leroy Moore in "The bait-and-switch cleanup," published this month in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

This worries McKinley, who says there is good reason not to trust the government when it comes to Rocky Flats. And he's not the only one who has this opinion. Jon Lipsky, the FBI agent who led the 1989 raid, and Jacque Brever, a former Rocky Flats plutonium worker and one of the primary witnesses during the grand jury investigation, are likewise afraid that the federal government is knowingly deceiving the public with regard to conditions at the site. Together with attorney Caron Balkany, whose sister lived near Rocky Flats and died of cancer, McKinley, Lipsky and Brever—already experts on Rocky Flats—have spent the past seven years investigating the federal government's handling of the Rocky Flats investigation and cleanup. Their findings are detailed in The Ambushed Grand Jury, a book released last year.

In the end it comes down to this: Are you more inclined to trust fellow citizens who have spent years working on this issue from unique positions of special knowledge? Or are you stupid enough to trust the federal government, which has a documented record of deceit?

HB 1079 will be up for its first committee hearing on Monday, Jan. 31. Opponents argue that informed-consent waivers will alarm the public unnecessarily. They ignore recent scientific research that shows how low doses of plutonium can be more deadly in the long run than higher doses.

One-millionth of a gram—a 24,400-year half-life.

How is it possible to overestimate the dangers of such a deadly substance?

McKinley's bill, if passed, would do nothing more than offer the public information. Do we not have that right? Is that not in our best interests and that of future generations? Can we afford to trust politicians and government agents who try to keep us in the dark?

HB 1079 deserves a full and open hearing in the House. Please contact your local representatives, as well as members of the House Health and Human Services Committee and urge them to support the bill.

Members of the House Health and Human Services Committee: Betty Boyd, chairwoman, 303-866-2923; Jerry Frangas, 303-866-2954; Bill Berens, 303-866-4667; Lauri Clapp, 303-866-5510; Mark Cloer, 303-866-3069; Gwyn Green, 303-866-2951; Kevin Lundberg, 303-866-2907; Anne McGihon, 303-866-2921; Jim Riesberg, 303-866-2929; John Soper, 303-866-2931; Debbie Stafford, 303-866-2944; James Sullivan, 303-866-2948; Paul Weissman, 303-866-2920.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com