East Palestine, Ohio is in the news for being the latest U.S. environmental disaster, and you may be saying to yourself “not again.” These disasters and their subsequent cover ups by the government and the companies responsible for them are nothing new. You all saw Erin Brockovich, right? And Silkwood? Watched Dark Waters? Heard of Love Canal, New York? Three Mile Island? Rocky Flats?
The last one is pertinent to my life story, and I believe a big factor in my triple negative breast cancer diagnosis. I lived and grew up within miles of Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, along with my two sisters, and our parents. My siblings and I were all diagnosed with young women’s cancer at some point in our 40s.
My older sister had thyroid cancer, I had breast cancer and my younger sister had melanoma. She was actually diagnosed in the same week as me – her call came on Monday, mine on Friday. We have all undergone surgeries for our cancers and will be monitored closely for the rest of our lives.
Because I had breast cancer, I had genetic testing. My test came back negative for the breast cancer gene, meaning my cancer was caused by something in the environment. Environmental cancers are extremely hard to pinpoint. However, my older sister and I firmly believe our cancers were a result of where we grew up, and I was pretty vocal about that with all of my doctors. Thankfully, they listened.
I will say this topic is up for debate around these parts, even amongst people I grew up with. Some see it as a non-issue – it was cleaned up, let’s get on with our lives. Others believe it can never fully be cleaned up and it has impacted the health and safety of many who lived nearby. But this is my story, and I’m not here to argue, I’m here to tell you what happened.
Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant
Rocky Flats was part of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons program. From 1952, until it was raided by the FBI and EPA in 1989, Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs. Each trigger contained enough breathable particles of plutonium to kill every person on the planet. (Iversen, KristenIversen.com, n.d.)
According to Britannica.com, plant operations were kept under secrecy due to the Cold War and National Security concerns. Meaning they didn’t want any rogue weather balloons flying over Rocky Flats. Most people in the Denver Metro area had no idea what happened at the plant. Because Dow Chemical Company was the operator of the plant from 1952 – 1975, (Thomas Cochran, Overview of Rocky Flats Operations, 1996) if you asked my mom what she thought was going on there, she would tell you they were making Scrubbing Bubbles.
That’s actually what she believed and no one was telling her otherwise.
Standley Lake and Surrounding Area
My parents purchased their first home in the early 70s in a suburb outside Denver, Colorado near Standley Lake. We lived in that house from 1974 – 1986. At that time, it was an area that wasn’t readily developed, but throughout the 70s and 80s several neighborhoods were built around the lake.
They put an elementary school walking distance from our house, we also had a public swimming pool, small library, a huge park, trails and a creek to keep us busy. The lake also provided many recreational activities including school field trips, fishing, boating and swimming. My younger sister and I never really swam in the lake, but our older sister hung out there a lot as a teenager.
Instead, my younger sister and I used to explore the dry creek bed during the summer months – picking the cat tail plants, dragging them through the dirt and walking the dry creek from beginning to end. Then walking home with our dirty, dusty shoes, bringing who knows what along with us.
Today, swimming in the lake is banned, because according to the City of Westminster website:
“Why is swimming not allowed?
Standley Lake is a drinking water supply for three cities, so due to water quality issues, no swimming or wading is allowed.”
You can however paddleboard, and I believe there is some boating allowed, but when I tried to look up what types of boats could be used, the website required me to register and login. I guess paddle boarding and boating don’t disrupt the quality of the drinking water {wink, wink.}
According to Britannica, starting in the 70s, many community groups near Rocky Flats were concerned about plutonium contamination in the air, water and soil, as well as a lack of oversight by the federal government. As a kid, I remember hearing on the news about protests happening outside the plant, but I didn’t understand the scope of the issue and my parents never seemed too interested in it.
They were making Scrubbing Bubbles, remember?
If you look at a map, Woman Creek Reservoir sits right across the street from Rocky Flats. Woman Creek feeds from Standley Lake, which also feeds the creek that ran through our neighborhood.
Kristen Iversen also grew up in the area, on the other side of the lake from where we were. She has written a very in-depth book about Rocky Flats called Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats.
The map from Iversen’s website on where contamination occurred shows the same area was affected.
Why Was Rocky Flats Closed?
After Dow Chemical, Rockwell International Corporation took over operations of the plant in 1975. Production of the triggers was stopped in 1989 when the FBI and EPA started investigating Rockwell for violating environmental law. “Rockwell subsequently pleaded guilty to charges of illegally storing and disposing of radioactive and other toxic waste,” according to Britannica.
Britannica also cites, “major sources of contamination on-and off-site were two fires (1957, 1969), an accidental release of plutonium into the air in 1974, numerous leaks of metal-laden oil from barrels stored outside since 1958, and a chromic acid spill in 1989.”
Iversen goes into extensive detail about the way the plutonium waste was stored in her book. Barrels that were never sealed properly, mismanaged and buried underground. Some barrels of waste even sat outside, deteriorating for years along US 36 which leads to Boulder.
Britannica states that the cleanup of Rocky Flats took place from the mid-1990s until 2005 when it was considered completed. Most of the site today is not open to the public, but there are areas that people can use for recreational purposes as well as a national wildlife refuge.
The Denver Post says the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge opened in 2018 after years of clean up and health studies were performed at the site. It was a 17-year process and cost $7 billion, even though initial estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy claimed it would take 70 years and $37 billion.
A quick Google search tells you plutonium takes 87 – 24,000 years to decay. So, if any traces of plutonium were in the soil…
Both Dow Chemical and Rockwell International were cited in a class-action lawsuit in 1990 where surrounding homeowners sued because of plunging home values after the raid and its revelations. They were awarded a $926 million judgment in 2008, which was overturned by the court of appeals in 2010.
Candelas
Several years ago, the City of Arvada allowed home builders to develop land just South of Rocky Flats, in a neighborhood called Candelas. Several of the homes have backyards that butt up to the Rocky Flats property line. These are beautiful, million-dollar homes. Many of the residents don’t know about, or don’t care about Rocky Flats.
Outside of Candelas on Highway 72 and Indiana Street sits an art installation of a giant horse wearing a red hazmat suit called the Cold War Horse. It’s an ominous site and a powerful reminder of the area’s history. And I’ve heard rumors the housing contracts included immunity to the home builder for any future health issues and a clause stating they can’t dig a garden in their own backyards.
According to the Candelas Life website, residents can visit the community garden and get their gardening fix working with other residents to grow fruits and veggies.
Cancer Rates
My sisters and I still live in the area, just a little further away in places that weren’t part of the contamination zone, depending what map you look at. I have been asked if Rocky Flats were to blame, why our parents didn’t get cancer? Unfortunately, my dad passed away very young from a heart attack, but who knows what his health would’ve been had he lived longer.
And our parents weren’t swimming in the lake, or playing in the creek bed.
According to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, based on a study done in 1998 they found that from the years 1980 – 1989, cancer rates in the areas around Rocky Flats were no higher than cancer rates in the Metro Denver area at the same time.
They also did a new study from the years 1990 – 2014 and found the same results. According to their report:
- “Cancer is not a single disease, but a group of over 100 different diseases that share some common characteristics. Cancer is common; it is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Three of every five cancer deaths are due to tobacco use, being overweight, lack of physical activity, and poor nutrition.”
I don’t use tobacco, I’m not overweight, I don’t lack physical activity and I eat healthy. And all of those factors have pretty much been the same my entire life. Except the Pop Tart/Pepsi combo for breakfast every day when I was in high school, but we won’t talk about that.
I call BS on their report. It sounds like they only focused on the people who lived in the area from the years the study was done. What about those who grew up there and moved away? Or only lived there for a short period of time? What about those who never heard of, or never participated in the study? Have they spoken to everyone who lived around Standley Lake in 1974 when the accidental release of plutonium sent a cloud of radioactive material over Denver?
Based on the amount of people I know and my sister’s know, who grew up in and around the area, who have had cancer themselves, or whose parents have had cancer, is alarming.
According to Rocky Flats Downwinders {a community organization advocating for those impacted by living downwind from Rocky Flats,} in November 2016, Metropolitan State University released the preliminary results of their health survey of Rocky Flats Downwinders. The findings were “anecdotal, compelling, non-conclusive.”
So, here we are again with East Palestine, Ohio. People have lost their pets, their chickens and are breathing God knows what and telling officials they feel sick, yet being told repeatedly that it’s safe. Thankfully, Erin Brockovich has gotten involved to be an advocate for these people since we know the government won’t. And Norfolk Southern can go F**k themselves.
If you’d like some Rocky Flats humor, you can listen to this clip from a local radio station:
Sources –
- Kristen Iversen – https://www.kristeniversen.com/what-is-rocky-flats
- Britannica – Rocky Flats, nuclear weapons plant, Colorado, United States https://www.britannica.com/place/Rocky-Flats
- Overview of Rocky Flats Operations, Thomas B. Cochran, Ph.D.-https://nuke.fas.org/cochran/nuc_11219601a_177.pdf
- Rocky Flats Downwinders – https://rockyflatsdownwinders.com
- CDPHE Rocky Flats Cancer Study – https://cdphe.colorado.gov/cdphe-rocky-flats-cancer-study
**I didn’t end up using this one, but here is another source if you’re interested in learning more
A Strategic analysis of the Rocky Flats cleanup, Patrick McCann, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Thank you for sharing this story. I moved to CO shortly before the clean-up started in the 90s and can’t believe that most people don’t know anything about it. I know of a woman who worked there and got a settlement from the company for getting cancer and also an engineer who said they buried a radioactive bus because it was the only thing they could do with it. It’s scary to have the Westminster water so close to this and the Marshall fire came really close to the Flats area. That would have been a major disaster. I think everyone in the area should know about the history.
There needs to be more people like you who are willing to tell their story. We bought in Lamar Heights In Arvada in 2000. Some people just like their heads in the sand. I did know about the “flats” but didn’t investigate throughly until after we purchased. Workers, some of which I know their families, that died of some of the health complications cancer, lung issues ect were compensated, probably not enough, but the property owners were NOT fairly treated. One woman said her family was denied compensation as she lived on the wrong side of the street and the people across the street were compensated. Others said that they filed too late? I hope your cancer is under control.But you know the odds, my drs told me that most of the time if you’ve had a cancer diagnosis, except for some small skin cancers, that you will probably die of cancer, even 30-40 years later, unless you have another disease or accident that takes you first. Time will tell.
Thank you for publishing this post. My grandfather worked as a machinist at Rocky Flats for Dow Chemical from 1957 to 1969. Subsequently, he developed bladder cancer and it was indeed, environmental. He later died. My heart goes out to all who worked for and put their faith in what seemed like excellent employment at the time. And to those who are innocent victims of the ignorance of the times. We know now, but unfortunately it’s too late for so many.
We had some good friends who lived off of 108th west of Wadsworth. I asked them in 1985 if there houses came with warnings because I heard that they did. They didn’t know. Fast forward to 1991, they had a son that was the same age as our son. Out of nowhere he just died. The doctors never new exactly why and one of there other children had a respiratory emergency. We had moved to Ft Collins and lost touch with them. I am convinced as a native Arvadan growing up in the 60’s – 80’s that there were and are toxins there. I drove by Candela about 10 years ago and couldn’t believe homes were built there
The CDPHE studies have serious methodological flaws: they consider areas like Boulder and Thornton to be “nearby” Rocky Flats, and contrast cancer incidence in those areas to that in farther away areas, of course finding little contrast – because the granularity at which they compare is too course, and not based on wind direction. The proper contrast to demonstrate increased cancer rates is at finer geographical granularity, comparing the Standley Lake area specifically to other areas farther away. Three studies opposing CDPHE’s conclusions did that. See my chapter in Doom With A View.
Thanks so much for sharing your story and for raising awareness about Rocky Flats. The CDPHE continues to deny public health impacts from living or recreating near Rocky Flats yet they rely solely on their cancer registry information which includes north Boulder and Adams County (areas outside of known contamination zones) and doesn’t account for in and out migration. Without signage and a comprehensive, independent health study we will never know the actual impacts the former nuclear weapons plant has on human health and I think the CDPHE would like to keep it that way. #Rockyflatsdownwindersaresick