Remember Rocky Flats
Dear HCN,
Several weeks ago, the White House asked Congress and the Senate to
exempt the Defense Department from the environmental laws of our
country in the interest of national security. Currently, Congress
is evaluating this request to make the Defense Department exempt
from both the Clean Air and Clean Water acts (HCN,
5/27/02).
At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I
believe this is a terrible idea that is unnecessary and ill
advised. I believe that an incident at Rocky Flats, the Department
of Defense Nuclear Weapons Facility located between Denver and
Boulder, demonstrates that our Department of Defense can be as much
of a threat to our health and welfare as any foreign
terrorists.
We have all heard about Three Mile
Island, but few people know about the catastrophic release of
plutonium from Rocky Flats.
According to a report
prepared by a Colorado grand jury in the early 1990s, a staggering
53 kilograms of plutonium were released at Rocky Flats by our
Department of Defense contractors, Rockwell International Inc.,
through a systematic nightly burning of excess stored plutonium
over a period of several years. According to reports, the plutonium
was burned at night to avoid having the chemical signature detected
by any inquisitive environmentalists during the day. The grand jury
had to obtain a security clearance to fly over Rocky Flats at night
to identify this chemical signature. Rockwell International Inc.’s
corporate executives made in excess of $100 million on bonuses tied
to keeping the Rocky Flats facility clean of plutonium during this
same time.
Under the current Bush proposal, we
are being asked to allow the Defense Department and its contractors
to be exempt from laws governing the disposal of toxic metals and
radiological materials into the air and water supplies of
communities across the country. Given the toxicity of the materials
and their longevity in the environment, we need to use the
knowledge of the Rocky Flats incident to assess the merits of this
proposal.
Yes, national security is important but
not at the expense of our natural resources or the health of our
citizens.
James T. Martin Thousand Oaks, California
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Remember Rocky Flats.
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