Book review of Full Body Burden, by Kristen Iversen. The story of growing up in Rocky Flats, Colorado, the site of a mismanaged and dangerous nuclear bomb factory on the outskirts of Denver. Plutonium production facilities in a suburban paradise? Maybe not such a good idea.
 |
| The Rocky Flats Plant, Arvada, Colorado |
There
is a common perception that the scale of nuclear fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi
disaster is matched only by the Chernobyl accident of 1986. That may be
accurate, but there are other travesties of nuclear history that are less well
known and possibly equally consequential in terms of their impacts on
environmental and human health. These other cases are important for the lessons
they can teach about the contentious struggles that occur when a population is
exposed to radiation and seeks remedies to the injustice of being poisoned by
an industrial crime.
Ask
yourself, “When I was a teenager, how many people of my age, in my school or in my neighborhood, do I recall having cancer?” If you were
living, like most people, in a reasonably clean environment, the answer is
probably none, or one at the most. If there had suddenly been several children
and teenagers in your community getting cancer, you might have reasonably suspected
that something toxic was in the local environment, and you would have come to
this conclusion quickly instead of waiting for the responsible authorities to
conduct scientific studies.
Kristen
Iversen, in her
book Full
Body Burden, tells
the story of Rocky Flats (twenty-six kilometers northwest of Denver) and her experience
of growing up within sight of the bomb factory. In her case, she knew several
children and teenagers around her who developed cancer. In addition, as years
went by, she observed many adults, including herself and her family members,
develop cancer and other illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome and immune system
disorders. The Department of Energy and other government agencies have never
done health studies on the nearby populations who were most likely to be
affected by plutonium contamination. Even though investigations by the FBI and
the EPA over the years have confirmed the extent to which the plant was
mismanaged and the surrounding area was contaminated, the government has always
maintained the line that levels of plutonium in the environment are not high
enough to have impacted health. Residents had volumes of anecdotal evidence of
deformed livestock and unusually high rates of cancers and other serious
illnesses, but this was never enough to prompt the proper studies and official
recognition of health effects from the operation of the Rocky Flats bomb
factory. Such is the way it goes with all cases of nuclear accidents, and most
cases of chemical pollution. The studies most likely to produce unwelcome
results are never funded.
I
wrote a point form summary (below) of the Rocky Flats story told in Full Body Burden, but other good
coverage has been done in the numerous reviews that have been published in
recent months (Kirkus
Reviews, The Denver Post). If you have read this far, you might be interested
enough to take thirty minutes to watch the videos below of physicist and
nuclear expert Tom Cochrane describing what he testified in official
investigations into the environmental crimes at Rocky Flats. He explains the nature
of plutonium and the hazards of handling it, then describes the criminal
mismanagement of Rocky Flats that lasted over several decades. His detailed and
dispassionate report describes the history in terms of fire safety, waste
disposal, plutonium inventory control, and management of nuclear criticality dangers.
The first three get a failing grade, while the last squeaks by with a D only
because, in spite of the poor controls, good luck prevailed and there never was
the serious criticality event that could have left Denver uninhabitable.
Once
you know about the crimes against the environment at Rocky Flats, and
understand recklessness, cowardice, greed and complacency that caused them, you
see in a new light how fatuous it was of American radiation specialists to come
to Fukushima offering their so-called years of expertise in radioactive
decontamination. All they could offer is the lesson of their negative example and
the knowledge gained by trial and error.
 |
| Chinook winds blow the plutonium-laden dust far and wide. |
Notes on Rocky Flats history
1.
The facility was operated by Dow
Chemical from 1953-75, and Rockwell International from 1975-1989, under
contract from the Atomic Energy Commission, (later the Department of Energy).
Afterwards, the lengthy process of decommissioning began.
2.
The plant processed large amounts of plutonium to make the triggers for thermonuclear weapons. Workers,
the local environment, and residents downwind were contaminated with high
levels of plutonium, radioactive substances such as uranium, cesium, strontium, and beryllium, in addition to various
non-radioactive hazardous chemicals.
3.
The area is subjected to extremely
strong winds called Chinooks. The
contaminants travelled far from the local area. Plutonium is most harmful as an
internal contaminant, and the most dangerous pathway into the body is through
breathing.
4.
Two fires, in 1957 and 1969, spewed large
amounts of plutonium into the air and came very close to being catastrophic for
the city of Denver.
5.
Production quotas always took precedence over safety, especially when there were bonuses involved for the workers
and for contractor revenue.
6.
According to their contracts with the
government, the contractors Dow and Rockwell were indemnified against legal claims, so legal costs, damage costs and
fines were paid by taxpayers. What they did have to pay amounted
to small fractions of the assets of these large corporations.
7.
Awareness of the problems grew during
the 1970s, and opposition eventually led to the United States government
prosecuting itself. There was a surprise raid at Rocky Flats by the FBI and EPA which was launched under the pretext that the FBI wanted to
discuss anti-terrorism protocols with the plant management and the Department
of Energy.
8.
After the FBI-EPA investigation, a grand jury convened for three years but in the end, unknown
entities within the Justice Department ordered the case closed. The grand jury
was denied its duty to hand down an indictment. Rockwell International escaped indictment, the file was sealed and jurors were ordered to not speak, but they did anyway.
9.
MUF. Plutonium Missing or Unaccounted For – this is the acronym for plutonium
that might have disappeared through errors of accounting or record keeping, gone to the environment (which also means into persons’ lungs, bones and gonads), to theft, to being mixed
with other waste materials, or into ducts and other parts of buildings. In total, the MUF is enough to make numerous weapons.
10.
Successful decontamination tended to
be defined by the budget allocated to it. It was supposedly just a fortunate coincidence,
according to officials, that the site was cleaned up and declared a wildlife
refuge for a fraction of the original estimate.
11.
The government refused to do the most pertinent health studies of the people who lived in the nearby
suburban communities.
12.
Thousands of people moved into the
area because of real estate greed and bureaucratic denial of the hazards to health. Once people had moved in, concerns
about property values and the jobs provided by Rocky Flats turned residents
into allies of the entities that were poisoning their children. This continues
to be the case now that developers want to build close to the newly opened
Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge.
13.
There is still contention over how to
define the site. Some say it should be called a sacrifice zone, with signage and public education that
tells the world what happened there. Instead, it has been defined as a wildlife refuge. The label “wildlife refuge” is a compromise that keeps people
and development out of the contaminated zone but stops short of informing the
public of the ongoing danger and the history of the site.
14.
Inside Rocky Flats buildings, and in other
similar factories in America and other nuclear states, there are places
nicknamed “eternity rooms.” These are places so contaminated that decontamination
work is impossible.
The FBI and EPA investigation against Rockwell International
and the Department of Energy
1. The allegations:
a. concealment of criminal activity
b. false certification
c. improper storage
d.
illegal discharge of pollutants
e. concealed incineration of pollutants
2. Employees were threatened not to become
whistle blowers.
3. Rockwell sued the DOJ, EPA and DOE,
saying it couldn’t deliver the contracted services if the price included
conforming to environmental standards.
4. DOE cancelled the contract with
Rockwell.
5. 1989 – Grand Jury trial, lasted 2.5
years.
6. Jurors were ordered to decide on the
suitability of proceeding with indictments.
7. A worker who testified was deliberately
poisoned with plutonium by coworkers who feared for their jobs.
8. The jury voted to indict on numerous
charges, against numerous individuals.
9. At the conclusion of the grand jury trial, the DOJ prosecutor refused to sign indictments regarding 400 violations.
10. The prosecutor negotiated a plea
bargain instead:
a. $18.5 million fine – 1/6 of 1% of
Rockwell’s annual sales, less than the bonuses paid to Rockwell at Rocky Flats
for that year.
b. Rockwell was reimbursed by taxpayers
for $7.9 million in legal fees.
c. Rockwell was indemnified against future
claims and allowed to bid on future government contracts.
d. The judge ordered the records sealed.
e. No individuals were prosecuted for
crimes.
f. The jury was ordered to remain silent.
g. The jury wrote a report and asked the
judge to make it public, but the request was refused.
h. Someone on the jury leaked the report
to the media anyway.
11. The significant question emerging from
this was whether government agencies could be held accountable at all. Considering
the old saying “you can’t fight city hall,” it is a much bigger question to ask
how individuals can fight a global superpower over the effects of its defense
policy of building thousands of nuclear weapons.
12. Government contractors like Rockwell
were only fulfilling the obligations of their contracts with the government. How could they be blamed for helping to
fulfill government policy?
14. How do you prosecute the government for
national policy that lasts over decades?
15. After this case, more workers began to
suffer health problems and they brought other lawsuits against Rockwell and the
Department of Energy, with only limited success.
Full Body Burden could have been a typical
non-fiction, blow-by-blow account of an environmental and public health
tragedy, but Kristen Iversen makes it more powerful and poignant by weaving it
with the story of herself and her family coming out of years of denial – denial
that weaves together the personal and the political.
In the year and a half that has
elapsed since the Fukushima meltdowns, I’ve been perplexed by how much a
government can abuse and disdain its own people with so little fear of consequences.
I’ve seen 60,000 people march in the streets of Tokyo, and I’ve seen the weekly
demonstrations at the Prime Minister’s residence. 10,000 people are trying to
force public prosecutors to open a criminal prosecution of TEPCO management. But still, the majority are silent. In raw numbers,
the opposition movement is impressive, but the majority do not want to face up
to the reality that their nation has become a nuclear waste depository.
When she was younger, Kristen Iversen
was no different than this cowed majority, and this is the most surprising
aspect of her story. When she was a college student, her boyfriend argued with
her over her political apathy and refusal to join the Rocky Flats protests. She
drove by the demonstrators thinking they were just a bunch of students and housewives
who want to get their names in the papers. She asked, “Don’t you think the
government would tell us if it weren’t safe?” It took years for this defensive
stance to break down.
Thus her story, and my daily
encounters with Japanese youth, force me to reject the conventional view that
youth is a rebellious stage of life. In fact, it’s not and probably never was. Only
a minority of young people can afford to be rebellious, which explains why the
revolutionaries of history usually came from the comfortable bourgeoisie. For
most people, youth is a time of conservatism and ambition. Young people generally
have faith in the society they will have to join, and they move into it
unquestioningly.
Young people are naïve and lack confidence
in their own knowledge. For all they know, those nuclear warheads really are
necessary for world peace. And the reality is as incredible as a fantasy that alien
invaders built the pyramids. The world is littered with nuclear waste that will
last 100,000 years and thousands of bombs pose an existential threat to
humanity? Go on. Who would do such a thing? Get out of here.
The young haven’t had decades of life
experience to absorb this information. Why would any young person be inclined
to swallow
the red pill and forever turn away from life’s comfortable certainties? It
takes most people a very long time to realize, that no, actually, the
government wouldn’t always tell you
if it were unsafe.
Young adults have also been worked
hard and conditioned to compete and conform, and they want the prizes that have
been promised. They want freedom from parents, they want to party, fall in
love, get laid, and most of all they want to get their share. They claim these
things as if they are rights guaranteed by a UN declaration. If some of them see clearly, they might think, like Jim Morisson, "I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames." But no one gains anything by laying himself down on the railway tracks leading to a plutonium
processing facility, whether it is in Rocky Flats, Colorado or Rokkasho, Japan.
If inconvenient facts get in the way, they will be denied and ignored.
Sometimes it takes a lifetime to lose your illusions. The great achievement of Full Body Burden is that it will help
readers accelerate this process.
Plutonium production elsewhere?
The list
below is other plutonium production facilities used by all the members of the
United Nations Security Council to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. Of the
five countries listed, only two of them (China and France) experienced no known
incidents that released high levels of radiation to the environment.
Britain
China
France
Soviet
Union/Russia
United
States of America
Further
interest:
The
documentary film Dark
Circle (1982)
on Youtube. About the film.
The Doors. The Cosmic Movie.
Well we're all in the cosmic movie - you know that
means the day you die you got to watch
your whole life recurring eternally forever,
so you better have some good incidents
happening there... and a fitting climax.
I tell you this, I don't know what's
gonna happen man, but I'm wanna have
my kicks before the whole shit house
goes up in flames.
