Rocky Flats Grand Jury Records May Show Hidden Radioactivity

DENVER, Colorado, August 20, 2004 (ENS) - A former plutonium worker at Rocky Flats Nuclear site says the U.S. Department of Energy has "made false representations to the regulators as the basis of cleanup plans" at the former nuclear weapons production plant near Denver. Jacque Brever held a news conference in Denver Wednesday to warn that large areas of land contaminated with radioactive and toxic wastewater were omitted from the cleanup now underway at Rocky Flats.

Rocky Flats is scheduled to become a federal wildlife refuge in 2006, but Brever and FBI agent Jon Lipsky are among those who told reporters that recreation on Rocky Flats lands would be dangerous.

"The Department of Energy's cleanup of the area immediately adjacent to and upgradient from the majority of the public recreational areas in the wildlife refuge violates the regulatory standards in two places," Brever said in her report.

Rocky Flats is located approximately 16 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado. (Photo courtesy DOE)

Lipsky, the FBI agent who led the June 1989 raid on Rocky Flats that sparked a grand jury investigation of environmental crimes at at the weapons production plant, spoke briefly to reporters, saying that his superiors in the FBI ordered him not to talk about the Rocky Flats case.

It was to have been the first time Lipsky spoke publicly about his participation in the FBI raid or a subsequent citizens' investigation of the contamination at Rocky Flats. Although still an FBI agent, he appeared as a public citizen because of his concerns about public safety.

"I urge you not to use Rocky Flats as a playground," Lipsky said. "Some of the things DOE has told you about Rocky Flats are just not true."

Also at the news conference was the grand jury foreman, Wes McKinley, co-author of "The Ambushed Grand Jury," a book published this spring alleging a DOE coverup of environmental crimes at Rocky Flats.

McKinley, the grand jury foreman, says in the book that the Justice Department made a deal with Rockwell Corporation, then the site's operator, to pay an $18.5 million fine to avoid indictments of company and Energy Department officials for covering up illegal waste dumping, illegal burning of contaminated materials and falsification of records.

The grand jury wanted to indict eight - six individuals and two corporations - but the Justice Department decided not to follow through with the indictment.

Production area in Rocky Flats Building 771. The building is now being demolished. (Photo courtesy DOE)

In May, federal and state agencies and Colorado Congressman Mark Udall asked the U.S. Attorney in Colorado to unseal the grand jury records.

U.S. Attorney John Suthers says he is willing to have state and federal agencies review the grand jury documents to determine if there is any contamination not known to those agencies responsible for the cleanup of the former nuclear weapons production facility.

Suthers, in a letter to Udall, says he does not think his office has any information that is not already known to the cleanup agencies, but he is willing to make the documents available to them anyway.

“There has been an enormous amount of environmental testing at the Rocky Flats site ever since the prosecution of this concluded over a decade ago and no one in our office believes that there is any evidence of contamination at Rocky Flats contained in Justice Department files which is not otherwise known to the multiple agencies that have been responsible for the cleanup," Suthers wrote.

"Nevertheless, we would be willing to have agents of the Department of Energy, the EPA and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment review the 65 boxes of documents to determine if any information would be useful to them in the continuing cleanup process,” Suthers wrote.

Suthers also said that if there are any questions about whether the information is subject to the grand jury secrecy rule, he would ask the courts to allow its disclosure.

To date the grand jury records have not been released.

Colorado Congressman Mark Udall, right, and Colorado Senator Wayne Allard visit Rocky Flats to introduce the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge Act of 2001. (Photo courtesy Office of the Congressman)

On Saturday Brever and McKinley are speaking in Boulder, Colorado, a university town only nine miles from Rocky Flats. Their topic is "How To Survive Radioactive Recreation at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge."

They will display maps showing where radioactivity remains in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed Recreation Area.

Brever will conduct a decontamination demonstration showing people how to avoid tracking radioactivity into their homes if they do choose to hike on the former Rocky Flats lands.

One year ago, on August 19, 2003, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced proudly that all the weapons usable plutonium had been removed from Rocky Flats, "a full 12 years ahead of schedule."

“This accomplishment is probably the most important milestone of the Rocky Flats Closure Project to date,” said Department of Energy Rocky Flats Site Manager Gene Schmitt at the time. “It also saves close to $2 million in security costs each month that can be applied directly to accomplishing more cleanup work.”

“With the plutonium removed from Rocky Flats, we will focus our resources on the final demolition of the site," said then Kaiser-Hill President and CEO Alan Parker, the company in charge of the environmental cleanup operation. “This accomplishment will enable easier access to the former production buildings allowing faster and safer cleanup.”

The Rocky Flats weapons plant was responsible for the fabrication of all the plutonium triggers currently at use in the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

Visit Rocky Flats online at: http://www.rfets.gov/doe/

View the "Ambushed Grand Jury" at: http://www.ambushedgrandjury.com