Also the fuckers had the audacity to name the subdivision 'Candelas'. For those following along at home, Rocky Flats was a plutonium warhead manufacturing facility raided by the feds back in the day for doing crazy stuff like lighting plutonium on fire, and not coming anywhere near close to what would be expected for storing contaminated materials. It then became one of the first super fund sites.
When you purchase a home there you are legally required to be provided and then sign a document that outlines the history of the Rocky Flats plutonium facility. I was provided this document and had to sign it as do every other homeowner here.
What I've learned is that people who don't really know anyone that lives there or have never bothered to talk to anyone who purchased homes make assumptions about the entire area. They assume that the people that purchase homes were ignorant rubes who weren't aware of the sites history. I knew about the site and researched it for well over a year before I chose to buy a home in the neighborhood.
I spoke with a nuclear physicist who lives in the neighborhood. I also have a co-worker who is also a physicist and was once in charge of a nuclear reactor at his university.
There were over a quarter million soil samples taken from the area surrounding the core containment area. There was decades of testing by the EPA. It was a super fund site for decades.
Additionally the neighborhood is not built on the site. It is built outside of a perimeter, well over a mile and a half from the core area that was covered over with concrete where the soil still contains traces of plutonium.
As you pointed out plutonium is indeed in alpha emitter rather than gamma. It's also extremely heavy and oxidizes on contact with oxygen. It's not the kind of substance that's going to blow around. It will kill you if you inhale it or ingest it of course.
I have many photos of herds of elk in the refuge that surrounds the core site. It's not at all the wasteland that people make it out to be.
Additionally your first statement claiming that a single company sues people who want to do testing is completely incorrect and can't be backed up by any references. I live here and I happen to know that no single company developed the subdivision. It was purposefully set up by the government of Arvada as a zone and split amongst multiple developers. Additionally more testing has been done in the land around the refuge which the developers have no control over or legal standing. As to testing within the subdivision, the homeowners can test whatever they want in their yards with no permission from the developers. Like a lot of anti-nuclear misinformation it doesn't even make sense when you dig into it.
Additionally the fire never got to a point where it was going to hit Rocky flats. Rocky flats and the surrounding area were placed under a pre-evacuation order in the event that the wind shifted. I live here that's why I know this.
I do respect your opinions, and I didn't want to start hysterics. But the mind goes wondering how all this happened, and where it could lead: a simple grass fire turned into one of the most destructive fires in Colorado's history within hours. That's not something that anyone was prepared to have happened. The mesas here were supposed to act as fire breaks, not fire starters.
I hope you and your loved ones - as well as your neighbors are safe. I'm glad to hear the news of your neighborhood being spared.
My partner is exhausted from covering the story for the NYT, as well as just this year. Overhearing her on the phone (paraphrasing, and terribly): "as a local reporter, I just want to grieve with everyone else, but here I am, needing to scrape open again freshly minted wounds".
Let me guess, a document that also indemnifies the developers?
> As you pointed out plutonium is indeed in alpha emitter rather than gamma. It's also extremely heavy and oxidizes on contact with oxygen.
So no refutation of the core point. And we know it was oxidized; they lit it on fire. That doesn't stop it from being extremely dangerous.
> I have many photos of herds of elk in the refuge that surrounds the core site. It's not at all the wasteland that people make it out to be.
There's been a resurgence of wild life around Chernobyl too. That's not metric for nuclear waste contamination.
> Additionally your first statement claiming that a single company sues people who want to do testing is completely incorrect and can't be backed up by any references. I live here and I happen to know that no single company developed the subdivision.
Candelas LLC contracted out several home builders, but that doesn't change anything. At this point they seem to have taken their money and run though; it was dissolved in 2019.
> It was purposefully set up by the government of Arvada as a zone and split amongst multiple developers. Additionally more testing has been done in the land around the refuge which the developers have no control over or legal standing.
Testing in the refuge literally stopped the development of the Jefferson Parkway because there was a sample that was almost 20x the limit.
> As to testing within the subdivision, the homeowners can test whatever they want in their yards with no permission from the developers.
Do you know anyone who has tested?
> Like a lot of anti-nuclear misinformation it doesn't even make sense when you dig into it.
It's not coming from "anti-nuclear" sentiment, it's coming from "lot's of evidence that an extremely dangerous superfund site wasn't cleaned up". Here's Jefferson County's Executive Director of Public Health publicly calling out some of the issues. https://www.denverpost.com/2018/06/15/after-decades-of-secre...
Again, I have huge animosity towards antinuclear activist because they have completely sealed our grave when it comes to climate change. We could all be like France now if not for them.
It should be noted that the super fund site was cleared by scientists from the EPA, scientists from the state of Colorado, and scientist from Jefferson County separate from their public health division. Decades of testing have been done. Colorado State University has also done extensive independent testing.
The mainstream scientific organizations have concluded that it is a safe area. The same people who attack vaccine hesitant people for not following scientific authorities and instead embracing fringe scientists have embraced fringe scientists and opposed scientific organizations on this exact topic. It is truly hypocrisy.
https://patch.com/colorado/arvada/state-reviews-results-late...
This article details a Colorado State University and Colorado state government review of the soil samples that the Broomfield City council used as an excuse to embrace the whims of anti-nuclear activists. (You can say this isn't rooted in anti-nuclear activism all you want. I live here and I know exactly who the protesters are and what their thoughts are on nuclear power. I have yet to meet a single person protesting Rocky flats who also happens to believe nuclear power is okay. There aren't any.)
"In a 28-page report, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment determined that "remaining Rocky Flats plutonium in the Jefferson Parkway transportation corridor and offsite poses a small risk, well within regulatory limits for radiation."
The report included an independent review by Colorado State University researchers."
"The health risk associated with remaining radionuclides is very small," the report reads. "The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Colorado Central Cancer Registry studies have not detected an overall pattern of cancers tied to Rocky Flats. However, interest in Rocky Flats remains strong."
The soil sample study, which was conducted by the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, began in May 2019. In August, the highway authority notified state public health officials of inconsistent testing results in one sample, which showed elevated plutonium levels. A second test from the same sample showed a much lower level, the authority said."
Note that that the above sentence is something showing that you fell into media misinformation based on an initial take without follow up.
When you live in Colorado at a high altitude, there are two sources of radiation that are all around us. The sun, where we get far higher UV exposure than others at lower elevations, and the naturally occurring uranium/radon in the rocky soil. I own a Geiger counter from a trip I took to Chernobyl many years ago. (My last company had an office in Kiev and I had to go there quite a bit). I really appreciate the lecture on the wildlife surrounding Chernobyl. I bet you haven't been there but I have.
There's a constant background radiation in Colorado. But guess what: Like the rest of the state the incidence of cancer is far lower than in the rest of the country. My family in Southeastern Virginia lives in an area with vastly higher rates of cancer than where I do.
