Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the 1989 FBI and EPA Raid

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 6/6/14 through 6/13/14

(THEME UP AND UNDER) This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Here is this week’s top headline:

* Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the 1989 FBI and EPA Raid  

This weekend, the Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship, a project of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, invites you to a series of informative events to commemorate the 25 years since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) raided the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Rocky Flats Nuclear Plant on June 6^th, 1989. The theme for the weekend is the raid and its consequences, such as the grand jury investigation and the subsequent controversy about environmental crimes. All the events will take place at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, located at 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, Arvada, Colorado.

Rocky Flats, a massive industrial production facility for the plutonium cores of nuclear weapons, began operations in 1952. It was the first time that DOE was able to mass-produce plutonium cores. Located between Denver and Boulder, Rocky Flats manufactured about 70,000 cores over 37 years of operations.

On June 6^th, 1989, the FBI and the EPA made history as the first U.S. government agencies to raid another agency when they locked down the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Arvada.  Five months later, the production activities were shut down.

Before Rocky Flats, the manufacture of plutonium cores was done at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), located in north central New Mexico. Shortly after the raid, the manufacturing equipment was returned to LANL, where it is now the only U.S. manufacturing facility for plutonium cores.

The weekend will include art, history and photography exhibits, as well as discussions by people who were involved at the time, such as former Colorado Governor Roy Romer, former U.S. Representative David Skaggs, former FBI agent Jon Lipsky, author Kristen Iversen, activist LeRoy Moore, and former plant workers, neighbors, and experts.

On Friday, June 6^th, beginning at 7 pm, activist LeRoy Moore, a founder of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship, will be part of a citizen panel. He will speak about his fast in front of the State Capitol after the FBI raid in response to the failure of then Governor Roy Romer to seek a halt to production at Rocky Flats.

On Saturday, there will be panels on “The Raid in Retrospect,” and “Secrecy and Its Fallout,” followed by a performance piece.

On Sunday afternoon, there will be two panels about “What Do We Know about Rocky Flats Workers’ Health Issues, 25 Years Later?” and “What Do We Know Today about Contamination from Rocky Flats?” Unfortunately, no discussion is planned about public health impacts, and the cleanup panel does not include a critical voice about ongoing concerns.

A link to the entire schedule is available at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship website at http://www.rockyflatsnuclearguardianship.org/ or the Arvada Center website at http://arvadacenter.org/on-stage/rocky-flats-then-and-now-2014.

This has been the CCNS News Update. For more information, please visit http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.

Tags: EPA, FBI, LANL, plutonium cores, plutonium pits, Rocky Flats