Honoring Kristen Iversen’s FULL BODY BURDEN: GROWING UP IN THE NUCLEAR SHADOW OF ROCKY FLATS. Good karma and bad.

Every year in the spring the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability presents awards in Washington, DC, to those who have made major contributions over the previous year to efforts to end production of nuclear weapons and get responsible management of nuclear waste and the maximum possible cleanup of contaminated sites. One award presented on April 16, 2013, went to Kristen Iversen for her book, FULL BODY BURDEN: GROWING UP IN THE NUCLEAR SHADOW OF ROCKY FLATS. I had the honor of presenting this award. Here is the text of my remarks honoring her.

It is my distinct pleasure to present an ANA award to Kristen Iversen. Kristen, as many here know, last year published to great acclaim a book called Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats. This beautifully written work intertwines two very personal narratives, one of life within a dysfunctional family residing in a sort of suburban paradise, the other one of gradually awakening to what it means to live immediately downwind of a dysfunctional nuclear weapons plant. No recent work in this field has attracted so large a readership so quickly. Critics are set back by its close documentation, especially on matters of ongoing controversy, while the open-hearted are won over by Kristen’s very direct communication.

I wish to address Kristen’s relation to karma. I refer not to her sister, Karma, but to the Hindu/Buddhist principle that what has been sown in past lives is reaped in present and future ones. People often think of karma as simply an individual matter, but it’s also a social reality, a very profound one. A society reaps what it has sown. It brings its fate upon itself. A given society – say the society of the USA – is at any given moment the inevitable and irrevocable product of its past. The culture of a society, the collective human habit of its people, shapes that society for good or ill.

Thus the USA of 2013 is a karmic expression of our imperial, racist, patriarchal, genocidal and ecocidal past. The nuclear menace that ANA addresses is a fateful expression of what has gone before. It exists not simply because our government corralled the scientists who could produce the bomb at just the time we had the political leadership willing, even eager, to use it, so use it we did to the applause of most of the people, who thereafter, with few exceptions, willingly paid the taxes to keep the nuclear behemoth alive, decade after decade, despite the local hazard and the global threat. We had conquered a continent; we could conquer the world. Collectively, some very large portion of the people of the USA created the karmic fate that now confronts us. How we respond creates the karma future generations must deal with.

Enter Kristen Iversen, a very gifted woman who applies her gifts in a frank, honest, compelling and compassionate addressing of the bad karma that Rocky Flats demonstrates. In Colorado, we are just now experiencing a renaissance of activism focused on the poisonous legacy of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb plant. We are witnessing a new awakening of people who, very much because of Kristen Iversen, have a deep awareness of the karmic harm rendered by the DOE, its contractors and its regulators at Rocky Flats. And they are saying NO. Kristen’s good karma is already manifesting itself.

Thank you, Kristen.

Research on Adverse Health Effects from Rocky Flats on Local Residents: A Summary

Facing plans to build the Jefferson Parkway along the most contaminated edge of the Rocky Flats site and the intent of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to allow public access to much of the still contaminated Rocky Flats site, we need a good summary of studies of health affects from Rocky Flats on people who live or work near the site. The following is my attempt to meet this need.  Of course I welcome comments or questions.

Carl Johnson’s cancer incidence study: In a 1981 study Carl Johnson divided the Denver region into three areas of higher to lower contamination of soil with plutonium released from Rocky Flats and a fourth non-contaminated area. Using data from the National Cancer Institute for 1969-1971, he demonstrated a relation between areas of contamination and cancer incidence in those same areas. The most contaminated area nearest Rocky Flats had 16% more cancer than the non-contaminated area, the intermediate area 10% more cancers, and the contaminated area furthest from Rocky Flats 6% more cancers. (Johnson, “Cancer Incidence in an Area Contaminated with Radionuclides Near a Nuclear Installation,” Ambio, 1981, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 176-182)

Feasibility study: In 1982 Nancy A. Dreyer and co-workers reported a feasibility study for an epidemiologic study of persons who lived near the plant. They assumed exposure to plutonium began in 1967 and concluded that, based on the environmental data they analyzed, exposures were not high enough to be evaluated with statistical analyses in an epidemiologic study. (Dreyer et al., “The Feasibility of Epidemiologic Studies of Cancer in Residents Near the Rocky Flats Plant,” Health Physics, 1982 vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 65-68)

John Cobb’s autopsy study: In a study that began in 1975 C. U. Medical School professor John C. Cobb and colleagues from EPA measured plutonium concentrations in autopsy samples from more than 500 persons who died in Colorado. They compared those who lived near Rocky Flats with those who lived far from the site and found higher concentrations of plutonium in lung and liver tissue for people who lived near the plant. (Cobb et al., “Plutonium Burdens in People Living Around the Rocky Flats Plant,” March 1983, EPA-600/4-82-069, Springfield, VA: National Technical Information Service)[1]

Crump’s response to Johnson: In 1987 a DOE-funded study by Kenneth S. Crump et al. responded to Carl Johnson’s cancer incidence study. Using the same data and methodology that he used, they replicated his results, but said they found no evidence of “a relation between environmental exposure to plutonium from Rocky Flats and cancer incidence.” They advanced the thesis that cancer rates were highest in inner city Denver due to the “urban effect” rather than proximity to Rocky Flats. To reach this conclusion they abandoned Johnson’s approach and divided the metro area into six equal-sized sectors centered on the State Capitol, then calculated the cancer incidence in each sector. They found that cancer rates in the sector containing Rocky Flats were no higher than other sectors. (Crump et al., “Cancer Incidence Patterns in the Denver Metropolitan Area in Relation to the Rocky Flats Plant,” American Journal of Epidemiology, 1987, vol. 126, no.1, pp. 127-135)[2]

National Cancer Institute study: In 1990, researchers at the National Cancer Institute completed a study of cancer incidence and mortality around 62 nuclear facilities in the U.S. This study compared cancer rates in counties near nuclear facilities, including Rocky Flats, with those for counties farther away. The results show slight elevations for some cancers in some age groups, but these data are hard to interpret because of limited information about other cancer-related factors. For example, Rocky Flats is on the northern edge of Jefferson County, which then had the second highest population of all Colorado counties, only a small portion of which were living where they could be exposed to toxins released from Rocky Flats. (S. Jablon et al., Cancer in Populations Near Nuclear Facilities, NIH Publication No. 90-874. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990)

Community Needs Assessment: In 1996 nurses at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center conducted a community needs assessment and concluded that community-based epidemiological studies should occur in areas affected by Rocky Flats. (N. J. Brown et al., Rocky Flats community needs assessment final report, Denver: UCHSC School of Nursing, 1996)

Epidemiologist Richard W. Clapp calls for ongoing medical surveillance: In 1996 Boston University epidemiologist, Richard W. Clapp, found excessive incidence of lung and bone cancers in areas near Rocky Flats and concluded that “the most recent data are indicative of an ongoing health effect and support the need for surveillance of the incidence of cancer and other diseases on a continuing basis in the exposed communities.” (Clapp, Report submitted 13 November 1996 for plaintiff’s counsel in Cook vs. Dow Chemical and Rockwell International, United States District Court, District of Colorado)

Colorado Central Cancer Registry report: In 1998, the Colorado Central Cancer Registry staff at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment found that cancer incidence rates for 10 selected regional statistical areas in the general vicinity of the Rocky Flats Plant from 1980-1989 were comparable to those for the rest of the Denver metropolitan area for the same period. (Colorado Central Cancer Registry, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Ratios of Cancer Incidence in Ten Areas Around Rocky Flats, Colorado, compared to the Remainder of Metropolitan Denver, 1980-1989, with Update for Selected Areas, 1990-95)

Historical Public Exposures Studies on Rocky Flats (1990-1999): Otherwise referred to as dose reconstruction studies, the purpose was to identify quantities of contaminants released off-site and the potential health risks posed by these contaminants to nearby communities. The studies attempted to determine if exposures and risks were sufficiently high to be observed in increased cancer rates in the surrounding population. Due to the low levels of exposure, population changes and the fact that no disease can be attributed solely to plutonium, it would be difficult to perform an epidemiologic study. The principal conclusion therefore was that no epidemiological study was warranted. (H. Grogan et al., Technical Summary: Phase II, Rocky Flats Historical Public Exposures Studies, Radiological Assessments Corporation Report No. 14-CDPHE-RF-1999-FINAL, Neeses, South Carolina: Radiological Assessments Corporation, 1999)[3]

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[1] In his interview for the Rocky Flats Oral History project (Maria Rogers Oral History Program, OH1180V), Cobb spoke of plans for his group to expand their autopsy study to determine whether plutonium was present in reproductive organs where via sperm it could adversely affect the health of future generations. The study was halted soon after Reagan took office in 1981 before the reproductive organ research could be completed.

[2] Johnson, in a published response, pointed out that Crump et al. were able to claim less cancer for areas near Rocky Flats only because the sector containing Rocky Flats also included the sizeable unexposed upwind city of Boulder (1970 population 66,870). They thus greatly undercounted cancer incidence related to Rocky Flats. (Johnson, “Cancer incidence patterns in the Denver Metropolitan Area in relation to the Rocky Flats Plant,” American Journal of Epidemiology, 1987, vol. 126, no. 1, p. 153)

[3] An epidemiological study is a statistical analysis of data (such as that done by Carl Johnson and Richard Clapp); it may point to the need for actual medical examination of people from an affected population but it does not involve such. The Historical Public Exposures Studies are sometimes called “health studies,” but no one’s health was studied. There has never been any direct health study or medical monitoring of people who live in areas contaminated with plutonium released from Rocky Flats.

Petition opposing Jefferson Parkway and public access to the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge

Marcella MacDonald of Superior has produced a petition opposing the Jefferson Parkway and public access to the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge. Signed copies will go to elected officials in city, county, state and federal governments. Here is the text:

Building a tolled four-lane highway and future hiking and biking trails on Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge, formerly Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, will cause plutonium and other radioactive materials to be released into the air, soil and water endangering the health, safety and well-being of surrounding communities.  We need to set a precedent to every superfund site that any development on former nuclear sites is not acceptable!

Please sign this petition. To do so, go to  https://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-building-of-a-toll-road-trails-and-bike-paths-on-rocky-flats-wildlife-refuge

How

SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/leroymoore/Desktop/Poetry/How%2011-27-12.doc

How

In May 1948, on the warm night of the last day

of my junior year in high school, when I was 16,

I put an end to my father’s beating me

with a rubber hose.

He’d escalated to this weapon for his wholly

unjustified punishments some years earlier.

On the night in question, as I made my way

through the darkened house toward the room

I shared with my brother,

I sensed my father’s presence before seeing him

with that garden hose doubled over in his hand.

He ordered me to lie down on the bed

as I’d always done.

It suddenly came to me

that I didn’t have to take this any longer.

My refusal triggered a struggle in which he tried

to force me down. I responded by wrapping

my arms around his neck and lifting my feet

from the floor so that I hung deadweight down

the front side of his body, absorbing all his energy.

Within seconds he went limp with exhaustion,

and I removed my arms from around his neck,

ending forever his physical violence toward me.

As the years passed I saw a straight line from

the violence of my father to the violence of my country,

the extremity of the former fortunately no worse than

a rubber hose, but of the latter enough nuclear force

to end human life on Planet Earth several times over.

When in 1978 I learned about Rocky Flats, where

the fissile core of every U.S. nuclear warhead was made,

I sought with others to stop what was done there.

In nonviolence training for my first civil disobedience

at Rocky Flats, we did a role-play called “deadweight”

in which you contain a belligerent person’s behavior

by hanging yourself deadweight down that person’s torso.

Tears burst from my eyes. Amazingly,

what I’d done spontaneously at age 16 was being taught

in carefully choreographed nonviolence training.

My father, I realized, without knowing he was doing so,

had made a great gift to me,

for he had planted within me the seed of nonviolence

and had even brought it to blossom.

As for Rocky Flats, an eventual fruit of the flowering

of nonviolent resistance was to end production there

of nuclear bombs, the extremity of violence.

Rocky Flats: Offsite Contamination and Public Health: Remembering the Work of Ed Martell and Carl Johnson

Two independent scientists did the most to inform people of the Denver area about public health dangers  of plutonium released from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. After a fire on Mother’s Day 1969 at Rocky Flats, radiochemist Edward A. Martell of the the National Center for Atmospheric Research was the first  to bring to the attention of an unknowing public that their lives were endangered by plutonium released into the off-site environment from the plant. Carl J. Johnson, MD, for several years chief public health officer of Jefferson County where Rocky Flats is located, showed empirically that the Colorado Department of Health was providing misleading data to the public regarding levels of contamination and that there was a link between contamination  levels and cancer incidence. Through the 1970s these two individuals informed and inspired participants in the rapidly growing movement of resistance calling for an end to production at Rocky Flats.

Earlier this year, in a book called Tortured Science: Health Studies, Ethics, and Nuclear Weapons in the United States, I published an article that details the contributions of Martell and Johnson, activity for which each paid dearly. The article explains why what they revealed about contamination from Rocky Flats is still relevant today. It exposes the failure of the government’s cost-benefit risk-analysis approach to public health at nuclear facilities and makes an appeal for a wholly new practice of “ecological democracy.” Entitled “Democracy and Public Health at Rocky Flats,” the article is available on line at http://www.rockyflatsnuclearguardianship.org/leroy-moores-blog/papers-by-leroy-moore-phd-2/

Rocky Flats: Plutonium in public water supplies may endanger health

The following paragraph is quoted verbatim from  page 7 of a paper by Carl J. Johnson, MD (1), who, for several years was the chief public health officer for Jefferson County where Rocky Flats is located.

“Plutonium is virtually 100 percent soluble in Denver area drinking water because of the presence of carbonate and fluoride in the water.’(1) This was confirmed by the appreciable amounts of plutonium ( 7,000-40,000 times background from world-wlde fallout) found in Denver drinking water as late as 1972. (2, 3)  Concentrations have been smaller since.   The chlorination of water by water districts changes the valency state of plutonium so that its absorption in  the gastrointestinal tract is enhanced by as much as 1750 times (4). In addition, plutonium is absorbed much more readily from the gastrointestinal tract of children, at least 100-fold in children less than one years of age (5), and 1000-fold in nursing animals (6). Moreover, when plutonium is taken up in the food chain and biologically incorporated, absorption is enhanced by  a factor of ten (7).”

The first study Johnson cites (note 2) regarding plutonium solubility was done by J. M. Cleveland, whose authoritative The Chemistry of Plutonium (NY: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1970, was written when he was the chief plutonium specialist at Rocky Flats.

Though, as noted, Johnson had called attention to the problem of plutonium in Denver area public water supplies becoming soluble as early as 1980 and then again in 1987 (see notes 1 and 3), the multi-year Actinide Migration Evaluation conducted as part of the Rocky Flats cleanup concluded that plutonium in the Rocky Flats environment was unlikely to become soluble.  These studies did not consider plutonium in water containing fluoride, carbonate, or chlorine.(8). For a critique of the Actinide Migration Evaluation at Rocky Flats, see my “Science Compromised in the Cleanup at Rocky Flats,” on line at http://www.rockyflatsnuclearguardianship.org/leroy-moores-blog/papers-by-leroy-moore-phd-2/

(1)  Johnson, “Some Studies of Low-Level Radiation and Cancer in the United States,” presented at the University of Basel, June 9, 1987; the University of Zurich on June 10, 1987; and the Universities of Bern and Lausanne on June 11, 1987.

(2)  J. M. Cleveland et al., “Plutonium speciation in water from Mono Lke, California,” Science, 1983, vol. 222,  pp. 1323-1325.

(3) Johnson, “Contamination of municipal water supplies in the Denver metropolitan area by the Rocky Flats plant.” Presented at the 146th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Scnence, in San Francisco, CA, January 4, 1980.

(4)  R. P. Larsen, R. D. Oldham, “Plutonium in drinking water: Effects of chlorination on its maximum permissible concentration,” Science, 1978, vol. 201, pp. 1008-1009.

(5) W. J. Bair, R. C. Thompson, Batelle-Pacific Northwest Laboratories, In Response to Comments: Guidance on Dose Limits for Persons to Transuranium Elements in the Feneral Environment. U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Radiation Programs, Criteria and Standards Division, Washington, DC, 20460 (EPA 520/4-78-010)(1978)

(6) M. P. Finkel, W. E. Kisielsk, “Plutonium incorporation through ingestion by young animals,” in The Health Effects of Plutonium and Radium, by W. S. S, Jee (ed.), Salt Lake City: The J. W. Press, University of Utah, 1976.

(7) M. F. Sullivan, A.. L. Crosby, “Absorption of transuranic elements from rat gut,” in Pacific Northwest Laboratory Annual Report for 1975, Part 1, Biomedical Srvices, BWML-2000, Battelle-Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Richland, WA (1976).

(8) Kaiser-Hill Company, Report on Soil Erosion and Surface Water Sediment Transport Modeling for the Actinide Migration Evaluations at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (00-RF-01823) (DOE-00-o3258) August 2000. See also “Approved Modifications to the Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement (DOE, EPA, CDPHE, June 9, 2003), Response to Comments, pp. 67-74.

An engineer’s view of Building 371, Rocky Flats’ most expensive failure

Thomas Bullock’sDiary of a Cold War Patriot (Smashwords, Inc., 2011, available on line at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/74199) narrates the career of a retired nuclear engineer who was involved in several projects at Rocky Flats when he worked for Parsons Corp., an engineering firm located in Pasadena, CA. One project that actually played a role in the end of production at Rocky Flats was the effort to correct design problems that plagued Bldg. 371. Bldg. 371, which opened in 1981, was intended as a “state of the art” replacement for the outmoded and quite dangerous Bldg.771, the plant’s original plutonium pit fabrication facility. The plutonium workhorse at Rocky Flats, Bldg. 771 opened in 1952. It was the location of the disastrous fire of September 11, 1957, that resulted in the largest single release of plutonium to the external environment.

Bullock calls Bldg. 371 “a $250 million white elephant” (that’s 1980 dollars). Anyone who has seen Dark Circle, a documentary about Rocky Flats, may recall a scene where dignitaries from Washington were on hand at Rocky Flats for the dedication of a new building. The film show a robot moving forward to cut a ribbon to signify readiness of the new facility. The robot malfunctioned before it did its job and the ribbon fell to the floor. This scene was the perfect unintended metaphor for Bldg. 371, for very soon after startup the building became contaminated throughout and had to be shut down. Bullock was brought in from the outside to lead a $60 million ultimately unsuccessful effort to get the building back into operation. Thus the newest, most robust, most expensive building in Rocky Flats history was never used for the work for which it was created.

Not long after the June 1989 FBI raid on Rocky Flats to gather evidence of environmental lawbreaking at the plant, the Secretary of Energy announced that production had been “temporarily” halted at the facility. The DOE soon proposed the “Plutonium Recovery Modification Project” (PRMP),  a very expensive plan to renovate Bldg. 371. This project was the lynchpin for resumed production at Rocky Flats. Activists, some of whom had engaged in repeated civil disobedience to protest bomb-making at Rocky Flats, were suddenly lobbying Congress not to to fund the PRMP.  In 1990 Congress, following the lead of the Colorado congressional delegation, voted against the PRMP,  a decision that made resumed production unlikely. In 1992 the Rocky Flats mission was changed from production to cleanup.

Depleted Uranium Work at Rocky Flats: An example of the “Black Budget”

Secrets abound at Rocky Flats, some more secret than others. One such was activity to develop depleted uranium armor plating for U.S. Army tanks. Initially deployed in West Germany during the 1980s, tanks with DU armor became notable for their use in the two U.S. wars in Iraq. This particular project was totally unknown to outsiders like myself who followed activities at Rocky Flats very closely. I learned of the existence of this program from Thomas Bullock’s Diary of a Cold War Patriot (Smashwords, Inc., 2011, available on line at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/74199). This book narrates the career of a retired nuclear engineer, who, when employed by Parsons Corp., an engineering firm located in Pasadena, CA, was involved in several projects at Rocky Flats, including the DU work. As mentioned above, this was a “black budget” item, that is, one not included in the regular publicly available DOE budget line, one for which even the existence of the budget was totally classified.

Bullock does not say whether the DU work at Rocky Flats also included coating bullets, shells and missiles with DU. Both forms of DU armor, coating for projectiles and coating for tanks, created radioactive contamination in Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq and later Afghanistan and other locations. U.S. soldiers in DU armored tanks that were targeted and hit often were exposed to radiation in easily internalized aerosol form. Of course, DU also contaminated populations where it was used, including totally innocent civilians. Some critics called DU the “agent orange” of Iraq. According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, “The fact that DU is aerosolized on impact with its target and is transformed into small dust particles capable of being carried by the wind may threaten air, ground and water resources, which all may become long-term repositories for DU. Long term impact is especially important considering the 4.5 billion year half life of DU.”

Bullock reports that once the DU tank armament developed at Rocky Flats was ready for application, the work was shifted to the Idaho National Engineering Lab, where it was housed in the enormous building originally built there for the failed effort to create a nuclear powered airplane. This facility was large enough that tanks could be delivered to a place where they could be out of sight while being coated with DU armor.  He doesn’t say whether the Idaho work was also “black budget.”

In 1993, after the change of mission at Rocky Flats from production to cleanup, for a brief period DOE pushed what was called the “Rocky Flats Conversion Project.” a name that they must have expected to resonate with anti-nuclear activists who for two decades had been calling for conversion of work at Rocky Flats from socially destructive to socially useful activity. The Rocky Flats Conversion Project was to be operated by a commercial company headquarter in Oak Ridge, TN. Their intent was to do DU work of an unspecified nature. They wanted to take over one building at Rocky Flats that happened to contain a very large, very heavy rolling metal press, capable of creating large sheets of DU at varying thicknesses. For a brief period, this Conversion Project received a good bit of attention. But within a matter of a few months, without much public notice, the project was suddenly de-funded. It disappeared like a bad dream, never to be mentioned again. I of course now wonder if the Rocky Flats Conversion Project was related to DU armaments.

Rocky Flats and the Jefferson Parkway: The question of safety

A few weeks back the Arvada Reporter, a publication of the City of Arvada, published an article asserting that constructing the Jefferson Parkway, a proposed privately financed tollway that Arvada supports, along the eastern edge of the Rocky Flats site would be safe. This is a specious claim, despite the fact that several federal and state agencies make the same assertion. I published a response citing key reasons why this claim does not hold water. My article appeared in the electronic news outlet known as The Boulder Blue Line. It can be accessed at http://www.boulderblueline.org/2012/07/24/rocky-flats-and-the-jefferson-parkway/?utm_source=Blue+Line+Updates&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=92b9606d48-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_term=Newsletter

Surprise: Big fire at Rocky Flats in 2003, a “thermal anomaly”

Toward the end of Kristen Iversen’s remarkable book, Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, she provides a detailed account of a severe plutonium fire that happened in Building 371 at Rocky Flats in May 2003 in which Rocky Flats firefighters put their lives at risk in order to protect innocent people both on and off the site. By the time of this fire, I had for a decade been attending Rocky Flats-oriented meetings at the rate of two or three per month as a member of a number of advisory and oversight bodies focused on trying to get a responsible cleanup at  Rocky Flats. When the fire happened, those of us engaged closely in Rocky Flats matters were awaiting publication of the final legally-binding Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement by the Department of Energy and the cleanup regulators, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Despite all this close attention to what was happening at Rocky Flats, I and others around me never heard that there was another serious plutonium fire at Rocky Flats in May 2003. No one from the federal and state agencies responsible for day-to-day activities at Rocky Flats, no one from Kaiser-Hill, the cleanup contractor, no one informed us of this fire.

It might as well have been 1957 when a plutonium fire at Rocky Flats resulted in the largest single release of highly toxic plutonium to the offsite environment and the public heard not a peep. Forty-six years later, not a peep.

On the evening of Kristen’s reading from her book at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, I asked a former Rocky Flats worker who happened to be present if he was aware of the May 2003 fire. He said he was not because he was not working in that area. He added that Kaiser-Hill’s contract allowed only so many fires or accidents per year for them to get full payment for their work. Otherwise there’d be deductions on what they were paid. He said he saw reports that mentioned a “thermal anomaly,” a term Kaiser-Hill employed to disguise what had really happened. He suspected that the May 2003 fire in 371 would have qualified as a “thermal anomaly.” Never mind that at least one of the firefighters was severely contaminated with plutonium. Never mind that the public may have been endangered.