Showdown over if site can open to public
Arvada mother Elizabeth Panzer says she fears radioactive plutonium in the dirt whenever wind blows at the former Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory, now a federal wildlife refuge, 2.3 miles northwest of her house. But she also wants to avoid alarming her three sons.
One son was diagnosed in 2014 with heart cancer that she suspects was caused by breathing dust churned by big yellow trucks at house-building sites near Rocky Flats. A neighbor died in his 50s of a similar cancer, she said.
Panzer will be among those testifying Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge Philip Brimmer, asking him to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s planned opening of the refuge for recreational hiking, horseback riding and biking.
While the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency repeatedly have declared Rocky Flats safe based on soil tests done more than a decade ago, Jefferson County’s public health chief, opposition groups, downwind residents and metro Denver public schools officials have indicated they don’t trust the government assurances that a cleanup completed in 2005 did the job.
“My concern is that we don’t know, for certain, if there are high levels of contaminants
where they want to put the trails,” said Panzer, 48, in an interview from her home in a neighborhood where people are active outdoors.
“If there are high levels of contamination on those trails, they bring that dirt and dust and mud off the refuge — and it goes wherever they go. Streets. Shops. Schools. All right around me. And then we can be tracking it into our house,” she said.
Also testifying will be radiation ecology expert Tim Mousseau, a biological science professor at the University of South Carolina who has won National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health funding to study effects of radiation on people and the environment in Ukraine, Belarus and Japan after nuclear disasters.
“We’re having to re-evaluate many of the risk and hazard estimates that were made in the past,” Mousseau told The Denver Post. “We’ve learned an awful lot over the last decade about how these contaminants work in biological systems. The main finding of the past decade is that many systems are much more vulnerable to these kinds of contaminants than previously appreciated.”
On Monday, Jefferson County public health director Mark Johnson — who has said he is “trying to do my job” of protecting people as responsibly as possible — reiterated his concerns.
“I do not trust all of the government responses to this,” Johnson said in an interview.
“It is not contested that the land in the refuge has been contaminated with plutonium. There’s some disagreement as to how great the risk is from being exposed to it. People at least need to know what the issues are and how it is spread. It is in the dust particles,” Johnson said.
“They need to be as careful as they can out there. If people make the decision to hike out there, they need to be aware and as careful as they can be. They need to be aware of the history of the land.”
A recent surge of public concern and mistrust has spurred new efforts by local governments in Boulder and Jefferson counties and elsewhere to test soil where people would go on trails to assess safety. Open houses are planned for review of a draft soil sampling plan.
Jefferson County commissioners said in a June 19 hearing that they support soil testing.
Residents have raised concerns about sampling methods in the past. State and federal agencies relied on plutonium concentrations in soil taken from three inches underground. They did not measure plutonium in surface dirt that wind could whip into the air.
CDPHE officials entrusted with monitoring site conditions aren’t planning additional soil tests.
The lawsuit in federal court accuses federal officials of skipping a required environmental review. The National Environmental Policy Act requires reviews before projects, and Boulder attorney Randall Weiner is challenging the adequacy of oversight in view of plans to install trails and a visitor center for large numbers of people including children.
During the Cold War, workers at Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers for the nuclear weapons that the U.S. developed to deter the Soviet Union. They also produced radioactive waste, with plutonium levels in some buildings deemed “infinity” because they were too high to measure. Plant operators apparently burned and dumped waste around the plant.
A $7.7 billion Superfund cleanup was done on the 6,500-acre property, where today’s Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge includes a 1,300-acre fenced core area containing buried waste that Department of Energy employees monitor daily.
“Industrial sources of pollution were removed during the cleanup,” and a Superfund investigation “concluded that no further soil sampling was needed,” said CDPHE environmental protection specialist Lindsay Masters, Rocky Flats project manager for the state government.
The investigation concluded “that the land was in a state already protective of human health and the environment,” Masters said. The land has been removed from the National Priorities List of environmental disasters, and CDPHE monitors groundwater.
“Multiple government agencies including the EPA, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, DOE, in addition to CDPHE, have all been involved in the oversight. Local governments, nonprofits and members of the public have all been very involved in the cleanup and decision-making,” she said.
EPA reviews at the site concluded the cleanup made the land safe. EPA regional administrator Doug Benevento recently said the refuge is “safe for everyone … suitable for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure.”
Rocky Flats refuge manager Dave Lucas said he couldn’t comment, but he conveyed an official agency statement.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to offering public access to the lands and waters it manages for the American people,” it said. “We are working to open Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge to public access because we are confident in the conclusions and recommendations from public health experts at the state and federal levels indicating that the Refuge is safe for visitors, our employees, and surrounding communities. We welcome the opportunity for visitors to enjoy these public lands and the wide variety of habitats, wildlife, and recreational opportunities available.”