Between 1953 and 1967, workers at Rocky Flats nuclear
weapons plant near Denver, Colo., were either incorrectly monitored
for radiation or not monitored at all. Now, the Department of
Energy is telephoning hundreds of current and former employees at
the closed weapons plant to tell them they were exposed to more
radiation than anyone knew. Mark Silverman, manager of DOE’s Rocky
Flats field office, told the Washington Post that examinations show
“modest” margins of error in monitoring radiation exposure to
workers. “So far the results are encouraging, although that doesn’t
make any of the employees feel any better,” Silverman said.
“Understandably, some of them are asking, “how can we trust you at
all?” “””During the “50s and “60s, while Dow Chemical was
contractor at the plant, workers wore badges made of
neutron-sensitive film. But during a routine check of old records,
agency researchers discovered that the procedure used for reading
the film badges was inaccurate. Technicians are now sifting through
95,000 old film badges in Denver and doing “dose reconstruction”
histories to find out how much cumulative radiation workers
actually received. As part of Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary’s
campaign for openness, the DOE says it will survey records at other
nuclear sites around the country as
well.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline So much for badges.
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