A new major study looks at the public-health effects
of Rocky Flats, 16 miles from downtown Denver, where triggers for
nuclear bombs were built for more than 35 years. Funded by the
federal Department of Energy and administered by the Colorado
Department of Public Health, Historical Public Exposure Studies
says public risks were low. John Till, president of Radiological
Assessments Corp., which conducted the second and final phase of
the study, says his group focused on reconstructing what happened
in terms of radioactive releases. Rather than doing an
epidemiological study, they laid the foundations for
one.
“The problem with doing epidemiology first
is, what are you going to look for? If you just go out and look for
higher doses of disease, it may be totally masked … and you may
miss the disease, the causal relationship all together.” As for
defining risk, he says, “When we say the risk is low … it’s low
in comparison to other things … vehicle accidents, low compared
to what you receive from natural background radiation, which you
can’t do anything about. But nevertheless, I would never tell a
person, here’s the risk, don’t worry about it. That’s a personal
decision.”
Len Ackland, journalism professor at
the University of Colorado and author of the new book, Making a
Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, says risk can also
mean one catastrophic accident. “The 1969 fire almost went through
the roof. If it had, there would’ve been a Chernobyl-type
disaster.”
To obtain the 34-page summary report,
call the state’s health department at 303/692-2640 or 303/692-2700,
or visit www.cdphe.state.co.us/cdphehom.asp. The Institute for
Science and International Security has posted an issue brief on the
study at www.isis-online.org. Len Ackland’s book, Making a Real
Killing, has just been published by University of New Mexico Press,
800/249-7737.
– Karen Mockler
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Life near Rocky Flats.
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