Symposium on Rocky Flats: Impacts on the Environment and Health

On April 23, 2022 well over 100 individuals worldwide attended this virtual Symposium organized by PSR Colorado. The Symposium spanned topics ranging from the history of Rocky Flats, contamination issues still plaguing the area, legal issues, critical analyses of epidemiological studies, and effects of radiation on the genome and epigenome.

Click the button below to see the program and to view each of the presentations online.

The Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant has a powerful history in Colorado. Local citizens produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons there during the Cold War, from 1952 to 1989.

Unfortunately, the production of these plutonium triggers was fraught with issues that continue until this day. Numerous accidents, as well as major fires in 1957 and 1969, contaminated the property outside the plant site with plutonium and other carcinogens and toxins.

In 1992, Rockwell, the contractor that operated the plant, pled guilty to Environmental Crimes and paid a $18,500,000 fine. The plant never reopened thereafter. The plant site was “remediated” between 1996 and 2006 and is now a Superfund Site and is a restricted area. The area surrounding the plant, known as the buffer zone, was never cleaned in any way. In 2018, that area was designated as the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge and opened to the public for recreation, walking and biking on trails, despite potential harm to public health and objections by citizens and organizations. There is a proposal to build the Rocky Mountain Greenway that would connect the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge, Two Ponds Wildlife Refuge, Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge and Rocky Mountain National Park by a regional system of interconnecting trails.

Areas surrounding Rocky Flats remain contaminated with plutonium as well as other carcinogens and toxins. Plutonium is of particular concern because it emits alpha radiation, considered the most dangerous form of radiation, and because it has a half-life of 24,100 years. Although alpha radiation can’t pass through skin, plutonium can be taken up into the body by inhalation, ingestion, or through a cut in the skin. If this should occur, plutonium remains in the body, continuously emitting alpha radiation that bombards thousands of surrounding cells, potentially causing genetic and epigenetic alterations. Exposure to plutonium is associated with cancers of the lung, liver, and bone that develop years later.

Recent surveys of the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge revealed very dangerous levels of plutonium dioxide.  In addition, sampling along the proposed trails evidenced that 29% of samples contained higher than background levels of plutonium.

We join community groups in calling for the following:

• The unsealing of all records including the Special Grand Jury 6 89-2 records

• Closure of the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge to the public

• Halting the construction of the Rocky Mountain Greenway

• Halting the construction of the Jefferson Parkway proposed to run just east of the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge

• A halt to any further development on or near the Rocky Flats site