Full Body Burden

Iversen attends Mark’s burial service with her family. His brothers plant a pine tree in his memory. 

Dr. Carl Johnson publishes his findings on the occurrence of cancers in the area surrounding Rocky Flats. Residents show higher than average rates of cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, testicular cancer, ovarian cancer, and brain cancer, as well as birth defects. Johnson also studies Rocky Flats employees, a disproportionate number of whom suffer from brain tumors and cancerous tumors. Two years later, the EPA states that Rocky Flats contamination may contribute to the high incidence of cancer in the area (168). 

The public scrutiny of Rocky Flats creates difficulties for all organizations with a hand in the plant’s management and oversight, whereas before, the plant created plutonium triggers with little outside interference. The Jefferson County Board of Health votes that Johnson should resign in 1981, and its head, Dr. Otto Bebber, meets Johnson for lunch to persuade him to resign. Johnson leaves his post, although certain officials support his pursuit of the truth of Rocky Flats. He goes to court to get his job back, but the judge rules against him. 

Engineer Jim Stone works intermittently at the Rocky Flats factory, beginning with its design during construction in 1952. He reluctantly takes a full-time position at the factory in 1978 and quickly identifies a series of problems with its operations; these include the factory’s hazardous waste storage systems, the plutonium lodged in ducts, and the improper incineration of plutonium. Stone also takes issue with “pondcrete” (171), the mix of water, radioactive waste, and concrete that Rocky Flats proposes as a waste disposal method. He notifies Rockwell of the infeasibility of this method, provoking his coworkers’ derision. Stone considers Rocky Flats’ many secrets and the future of the plant, but he expects they will keep him employed while their problems persist.

Iversen discusses the history of humanity’s work with radioactive materials. Marie Curie studied radioactivity and discovered the element radium in 1899. Radium became an ingredient in medicinal and personal hygiene products in the early 20th century, but it falls out of use after its adverse influence on health. In the 1920s,“Radium Girls” (173) who use the element in a glow-in-the-dark watch factory suffer illness and, in some cases, death. Enrico Fermi discovers plutonium in 1934, and Edwin McMillan later names the element after the planet Pluto. 

During World War II, physicists—including Albert Einstein—urge President Roosevelt to consider developing a bomb in the United States. The Plutonium Project, later known as the Manhattan Project, begins research on the atomic bomb after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The project moves from Chicago to Los Alamos, New Mexico, with additional sites in Washington and Tennessee. The Manhattan Project creates two bombs using radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium to create nuclear fission. The team tests the powerful bomb called Trinity in New Mexico in 1945. Soon, the United States bombs the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with these new atomic weapons. 

Nuclear weapons production increases during the Cold War in America's effort to keep pace with the Soviet Union. Researching the nuclear industry’s safety, scientists determine that plutonium damages the human body and that “even 1 microgram—that is, one-millionth of a gram—should be considered a potentially lethal dose” (177). The Department of Energy (DOE) coins the term “full body burden” (177) to describe the maximum amount of radiation the human body can take without a health risk. Studies of nuclear industry workers show a correlation between radiation exposure and cancer, as well as the dangers plutonium poses to the lungs when inhaled. 

Various researchers debate the precise amount of the full body burden, measured in micrograms of plutonium. A major industry group recommends that it should be 0.1 microgram in 1949, but the overseers of Los Alamos maintain a 0.5-microgram full body burden. The amount of permissible plutonium for an industry employee, set by the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP), has not changed since 1958 and persists into the 21st century. Iversen remarks how the United States cultivated plutonium for defensive reasons but suffers from its production.  

Despite the risk, Rocky Flats makes pondcrete; the boxes of radioactive waste and concrete leak over time, contaminating the environment. Rocky Flats also sent boxes of pondcrete to the Nevada Test Site, which violates a new policy from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Regulations like these do not typically have enforcement in the nuclear industry—particularly when following proper waste disposal procedures conflicts with production. Government agencies express public zeal for cleaning up Rocky Flats, but the publicity belies the poor environmental conditions of the plant. 

Jim Stone continues reporting on Rocky Flats’ environmental hazards. One day, when Stone sits in a meeting, two Rocky Flats staffers inform him of his immediate dismissal. 

Traumatized by Mark’s death, Iversen returns to school and ceases her writing habit for the first time in years. At home, her mother financially struggles as her father’s alcoholism continues to afflict his health, his livelihood, and his law practice. 

The Rocky Flats Truth Force occupation continues, and some protesters walk the 242-mile area around the plant to demonstrate the reach of the plant’s environmental impact. Fifteen thousand people attend a 1979 rally consisting of speeches, performances, and a walk from Boulder to Rocky Flats. A Nobel Prize-winning biology professor named George Wald speaks, and Dr. Helen Caldicott declares the plant a “death factory” (183). Participants send balloons into the air as part of the two-day rally. The police arrest nearly 300 people, and the judge who tries a few of them states that their beliefs about nuclear production do not justify criminal activity. 

Although Rocky Flats claims to be a safe working environment for its almost 3,500 employees, Iversen cites the case of Don Gabel as an example that proves otherwise. For 10 years, Gabel works at the plant in close proximity to radioactive materials that harm his body. A large tumor grows on his brain, and he dies. The DOE takes his brain for study but never follows through. Rocky Flats employees like engineer Larry McGrew maintain their stance that the plant is safe. 

A contingent of Rocky Flats employees and others start the Citizens for Energy and Freedom in order to promote the positive effects of the plant. They hold their own rally and wear t-shirts with slogans like “Pro-Nuke and Proud” (185). They reason that they would not live and work in a facility that wasn’t safe. Rocky Flats celebrates its 30th anniversary. 

One evening in 1979, a group of protesters infiltrates the fence around the plant and guards arrest them. One of the protesters realizes how easy it is to trespass, while an authority from Rockwell remarks on how the guards could have shot the protesters. As a college student, Iversen passes people praying outside Rocky Flats and approaches them. A woman asks her to join, but Iversen is surprised to see a man who looks like Mark. Troubled, she returns to her car thinking about him. 

Iversen’s sister Karma, interested in the anti-Rocky Flats movement, sees a documentary about the factory called Dark Circle. She also attends the Rocky Flats Encirclement in October 1983—a protest in which thousands of people join hands to form a human chain around the plant’s perimeter. Karma comes with her brother Kurt, her sister Karin, and friend Laurie, whose father is a Rocky Flats employee. Police and guards surround the protesters, who place objects between them as extra links in the chain. Several trumpeters play music, and the protesters sing and send balloons into the air. A group of people from the Colorado Conservative Union protests the Encirclement and mocks its lack of people to form a complete chain. 

After the protest, Karma takes her dad’s car to Rocky Flats. The guards let her and Laurie through the main gate; they drive next to a building and park. They get out and wait, but after no guards arrive, they exit the plant without incident. 

Two nuns pose as Rocky Flats security and infiltrate the plant to protest. They each go to federal prison and receive visits from their friend Sister Pat McCormick, a member of the Rocky Flats prayer group. McCormick and her friend Mary Sprunger-Froese also freely enter the facility and stage a protest on Ash Wednesday. Guards arrest them, and they serve two months of jail time. 

In August 1987, thousands protest the plant by blocking the entrance to Rocky Flats. Daniel Ellsberg, Allen Ginsberg, and Ann White all participate while a line of police and guards, including Debby Clark, stand in opposition to the protesters. The protesters walk toward and through the guards while the guards command them to stop. The protesters sit and lie down, and hundreds go to jail—including Ann White. After the police process White at the station, she quickly prepares for her son’s engagement party and later completes community service for the crime of trespassing. 

The waste management at Rocky Flats and other nuclear sites throughout the United States faces issues by the late 1980s. Rocky Flats has met its maximum of nuclear waste storage as stipulated by the DOE and the State of Colorado. Its dumpsite at Idaho National Engineering Laboratory—which poses its own environmental issues—closes its doors to Rocky Flats' waste in 1988. The planned federal waste management location in New Mexico is not yet ready to take on waste. 

Rocky Flats has already dispatched a boxcar of waste to Idaho when the governor forbids further waste storage in the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The boxcar sits in Blackfoot, Idaho, while Colorado’s governor Roy Romer says the boxcar should not return to Colorado since Rocky Flats cannot accommodate more waste. Officials at the Reagan White House propose several alternative sites for the boxcar’s storage, but each city refuses to house it. Idaho’s governor, Cecil Andrus, moves the boxcar back to Colorado; it returns to Rocky Flats and sits on the railroad tracks. The DOE, Romer, and other state officials agree to continue storing waste at Rocky Flats until the federal site, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), opens. 

One little-known element of Rocky Flats is its incinerator, which burns radioactive material 24 hours a day for years at a time. Dr. Edward Martell and fellow scientists notify the government that the incinerator contaminates the environment with radioactive material, but Rocky Flats and the DOE protest. They claim the plant operates safely, but later revelations show that indeed the incinerator burns copious amounts of plutonium. 

An ongoing trial between landowners and the DOE continues for nine years. Landowners sue due to the environmental contamination posed by Rocky Flats, its effect on property value, and hazards to health. Carl Johnson testifies that Rocky Flats' contamination afflicted surrounding communities with cancer. An epidemiologist for the health department of Colorado, Stanley Ferguson, counters that Rocky Flats has not necessarily caused more occurrences of cancer and that although its location is not ideal, there is no reason to move the plant. The judge concurs with Ferguson, although he concedes that Rocky Flats has indeed dispersed radioactive material in the environment. The suit settles, with $9 million given to Charles Church McKay and his fellow landowners. Not all the land around Rocky Flats is closed; some remains open for recreation and residences. 

The McKays receive a statement from Colorado that the soil on their land has not exceeded the official limit of radioactive contamination. The DOE closes the files about the suit. Carl Johnson continues his public campaign against Rocky Flats. 

Both politicians and civilians advocate for Rocky Flats to move sites, while the DOE would prefer to increase the plant’s current size. The DOE studies the plant and states that moving it would cost the area in jobs and revenue. In the case of a nuclear event at the plant, an official emergency process is slow to develop and does not include an evacuation component. Critiquing the developing Radiological Emergency Response Plan, Dr. Carl Johnson warns the public that a nuclear accident would pose incredible health risks and long-lasting contamination to the community. A representative from Rockwell disputes that a nuclear event is unlikely and that the human body can defend itself against radioactive materials. Johnson argues against this and advocates for evacuation procedures to be added to the emergency response plan. The proposed Radiological Emergency Response Plan never becomes official, leaving the public ignorant about how to handle an accident at Rocky Flats. 

A new building at Rocky Flats, Building 371, is developed to replace the older Building 771, a faulty facility that created plutonium triggers for 30 years. Although developers find issues like cracks in the wall in Building 371, the facility opens and begins production. Equipment failures and loss of plutonium inventory recur throughout Building 371’s two years of operation. Rockwell closes it and reopens Building 771, where the 1957 fire occurred. 

The Rocky Flats Advisory Notice, an official document telling homeowners near the factory about the presence of plutonium in the environment, is no longer required after developers support the motion to eliminate it. 

Iversen’s mother attempts to sell their house. The real estate agent says that people avoid the area for fear of hazards from Rocky Flats, but Iversen’s mother brushes this theory aside. Iversen notes how the children of her neighborhood have all grown up and moved away. Iversen’s mother drops off Karma and her friend Laurie on the side of the road so they can hitchhike. Iversen begins dating a man from college named Andrew and the two marry quickly. 

Iversen’s mother sells the house in 1983 and moves with Kurt into an apartment. Kurt's high school suspends him because of a senior prank, but the principal allows him to graduate. At the ceremony, he drops lit firecrackers on the stage, which delays his receiving his diploma. Karin studies at a university, Karma travels in an unknown location, and their father has fallen out of contact with the family. 

The DOE might resist public criticism about Rocky Flats, but their internal studies show that the agency knows the plant falls far short of government standards on several fronts. Government officials who attempt to inspect the plant’s compliance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act meet resistance. In 1988, a DOE inspector encounters plutonium at the plant due to a lapse in safety protocol. His report documents the plant’s faults in great detail, and “the DOE closes Building 771” (207) soon thereafter. 

The Rocky Flats Environmental Monitoring Council organizes a public forum to discuss the event. At the meeting, the DOE manager of the plant, Earl Whiteman, describes what happened. Hundreds of attendees cry out against the plant, and a local woman questions if her late husband’s cancer resulted from Rocky Flats’ contamination.

Whiteman also discusses the boxcar of waste, and attendees are shocked to hear how much plutonium it holds. Two scientists in attendance, Niels Schonbeck and Harvey Nichols, state that all boxcars from Rocky Flats run the risk of culminating in a nuclear explosion. A Rocky Flats employee also exposed to radiation along with the DOE inspector states that he feels secure working there. 

A DOE study lists Rocky Flats as the most contaminated nuclear weapons plant in America “primarily due to hazardous waste in the groundwater and the large population directly downwind and downstream” (209). The report details environmental contamination near Richland, Washington, at the Nevada Test Site, and the Savannah River Plant, among others. 

Rockwell puts Building 771 back into operation, although government officials like Bob Alvarez doubt that the area around the plant will ever be free from contaminants. 

An FBI officer named Jon Lipsky and a representative from the EPA National Environmental Investigation Unit, William Smith, pair up to investigate Rocky Flats, but people are reticent to share what they know. Ousted engineer Jim Stone gives copious amounts of information involving the waste incinerator, environmental contamination, and unsafe practices such as workers tampering with filters.   

Lipsky and Smith find an environmental lawyer named Ken Fimberg to help them conduct a test of the air over Rocky Flats. Fimberg obtains a letter giving Lipsky and Smith immunity to take infrared photographs over the plant, which would otherwise be illegal trespassing. The three also meet with Mike Norton, the attorney for Colorado at the Department of Justice, and obtain permission to take the photographs. 

The team takes the photographs from an FBI plane in December of 1988, and the infrared photography suggests the presence of nuclear material in the air above Building 771: “The photographs indicate that, contrary to statements by Rockwell and the DOE, the 771 incinerator is thermally active and likely in operation, burning radioactive waste” (214). The photographs also show radioactive contamination of nearby Woman Creek and in the air beyond Rocky Flats. 

Lipsky and Smith assemble an affidavit alleging that plant officials broke laws and endangered the area with contamination. Fimberg meets with the Justice Department, which authorizes the submission of the affidavit for the purposes of raiding the plant. The attorney general and the secretary of the DOE also approve. 

Former Jefferson County Health Director Carl Johnson publishes a study about Rocky Flats' contamination and its ill effects on the community. After pursuing legal action in order to regain his job, he settles with Jefferson County for $150,000 (215). He also writes an article for the New York Times, advocating for independent reviews of nuclear facilities for the greater good of the public. Soon thereafter, at 59-years-old, Johnson dies. Iversen cites Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People, which depicts a doctor who, like Johnson, identifies a public health hazard, and becomes a pariah. 

On June 6, 1989, Lipsky arrives at Rocky Flats with a search warrant and a large team from the FBI and EPA, to conduct their raid on the plant.