Kristen Iversen - Doom with a View: Historical and Cultural Contexts of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant

Text 2020 Edited by Kristen Iversen, with E. Warren Perry and Shannon Perry

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Iversen, Kristen, editor. | Perry, E. Warren, Jr., editor. | Perry, Shannon, editor.

Title: Doom with a view : historical and cultural contexts of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant / edited by Kristen Iversen with E. Warren Perry and Shannon Perry.

Description: Golden, CO : Fulcrum, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: Tucked up against the Rocky Mountains, just west of Denver, sits the remnants of one of the most notorious nuclear weapons sites in North America: Rocky Flats. With a history of environmental catastrophes, political neglect, and community-wide health crises, this site represents both one of the darkest and most controversial chapters in our nations history, and also a conundrum on repurposing lands once considered lost. As the crush of encroaching residential areas close in on this site and the generation of Rocky Flats workers passes on, the memory of Rocky Flats is receding from the public mind; yet the need to responsibly manage the site, and understand the consequences of forty years of plutonium production and contamination, must be a part of every decision for the lands future-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020008211 | ISBN 9781682752548 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Rocky Flats Plant (U.S.) | Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (U.S.) | Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Colorado. | Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Colorado. | Radioactive pollution--Colorado.

Classification: LCC TD195.N85 D66 2020 | DDC 363.17/990978884--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008211

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Foreword
Christopher Hormel

Preface
Kristen Iversen and Warren Perry

1. The Accidental Activist
Kristen Iversen

2. Enemies of the People
Mark Johnson

3. Deadly Development and the Radioactive Refuge: Building and Recreating on Plutonium-Contaminated Land
Randy Stafford

4. Art and Plutonium at Rocky Flats
Jeff Gipe

5. Cook v. Rockwell Lawsuit
Louise Roselle

6. Rocky Flats and Environmental Health: Contested Illnesses and Contended Spaces
Stephanie Malin, Becky Alexis-Martin, and Carol Jensen

7. Its No Chocolate Factory: Plutonium Dioxide Particles from Rocky Flats
Michael E. Ketterer

8. Questioning Official Standards for Permissible Exposure to Radiation
LeRoy Moore

9. Rocky Flats: Poisoned Chalice?
Harvey Nichols

10. The Grieving Landscape: Homes and Wombs Do Not Protect
Heidi Hutner

11. Compensation Programs for Workers at Rocky Flats
Louise Roselle

12. Liberty and Security in the Nuclear Age
Heidi Maibom

13. The Resonance of Rocky Flats: Teaching and Memorializing the Nuclear Paradox
E. Warren Perry, Jr.

14. The Nuclear PowerNuclear Weapons Connection
Linda Pentz Gunter

15. A Vow to Future Generations Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship
Kathleen Sullivan

16. Criminal Fallout at Rocky Flats
Jon Lipsky

Christopher Hormel

Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculations or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

President John F. Kennedy, September 25, 1961, UN General Assembly

The nuclear sword is still hanging over us, by a thread tragically close to being cut. At worst a nuclear war would result in the end of civilization and death to most life on the planet. A limited nuclear exchange would immediately kill millions in a radioactive firestorm, and the debris that collects in the atmosphere would cause a nuclear winter, changing the climate around the globe, disrupting food production, causing many more deaths from starvation and war among the survivors.

We have somehow avoided nuclear Armageddon, but the damage to the health of the planet and all life upon it from the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy has already manifest. We have contaminated our world with atmospheric nuclear testing, uranium mining and milling, accidental and illegal dumping of waste, radioactive fires, and core meltdowns. The nuclear weapons industry has been negligent in the extreme, leaving enormous levels of contaminated materials everywhere they have operated. Nuclear power plants release radiation daily, and all have large amounts of spent fuel stored on site. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima remind us of the danger. There is no safe dose of radiation, yet governments around the world have allowed safety limits to be more relaxed, instead of making them more protective. Given the ignorance and negligence with which we have handled nuclear materials, the lives of many of our descendants will be degraded by more cancers, birth defects, mutations, and other health issues. Our nuclear age will have a negative impact on living beings for millions of years.

We may be able to improve the prospects for future generations, but it will take all of us to speak out and force our leaders to listen to reason. There is a treaty banning nuclear weapons that came out of the United Nations in 2017. In the United States we dont hear much about it, but there are many countries in the rest of the world who are challenging us to examine the morality of threatening the world with annihilation. Will we listen? Will we as Americans examine our past behavior and admit our responsibility for the extreme danger to life we have created?

Reading this book is a good place to start. Doom with a View provides an honest appraisal of the consequences of nuclear weapons manufacturing by telling the story of Rocky Flats. This story is not subject to the greenwashing of corporate and government agency spin doctors. There is no nefarious political agenda driving the writers of these essays. These good people are neither scaremongers nor agents of foreign powers. Every one of the contributors to this book has borne witness to the suffering of the victims of the blind ambition to achieve a superior nuclear arsenal that was the driving force behind the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant.

I am grateful to Kristen Iversen and E. Warren Perry, Jr. for assembling this collection of essays about Rocky Flats, the mess that was made, how it was closed, the resulting so-called cleanup, and the toxic legacy that remains. It takes courage to tell this story because many in the area around Rocky Flats dont want to hear it. The truth of the story is bad for business. Radioactive contamination deters tourists, home buyers, and employers. So the storytellers must take a deep breath and persevere. They must endure being dismissed by politicians and business leaders. They must tolerate having their patriotism questioned.