Plutonium in dust at Rocky Flats

On January 10, 2010, I published an op-ed calling on the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment to take discrete samples of dust in surface soil at Rocky Flats and to analyze each sample for plutonium content. This kind of sampling has never been done on the Rocky Flats site, and it should be because burrowing animals could bring plutonium buried in the soil at Rocky Flats to the surface where particles of breathable size, its most dangerous form from a public health standpoint, could be picked up by the wind distributed to unsuspecting parties near and far. Opening the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refufge for public recreation could expose visitors, especially children, to this danger. This op-ed stirred quite an exchange, beginning with a very dismissive memo addressed not to me but to Colorado Congressional staff and followed by a newspaper response from an official of CDPHE. I responded to both these pieces. The overall exchange is very revealing. To see the correspondence, go to http://www.rmpjc.org/about+Pu+in+dust+at+Rocky+Flats+