04/06/2019
"It's horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment."
- Ansel Adams
I learned about two very, very polluted areas on my vacation to Colorado. One even more so than Chernobyl. They are Rocky Flats "Wildlife Refuge" and Rocky Mountain Arsenal "National Wildlife Refuge".
Rocky Flats was a nuclear weapons plant that produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs from the early 1950s to 1989. The plant had no cleanup. The last testing in *2004* showed that plutonium is still present on the "refuge". Although there was a cleanup in 2006 costing roughly $7 billion, it was only where the plant was. Throughout the years the contaminants have seeped into the dirt and groundwater carrying it all over the surrounding areas.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) on the other hand was initially purchased by the US Army to produce chemical weapons such as Sarin and Lewisite. It was then leased to Shell Chemical Company for the productions of pesticides (over 600 of them). Due to inadequate handling of chemicals used in production, irresponsible waste treatment procedures, and explosives testing. All of which have also seeped into groundwater and spread by wind onto the soil. The RMA is the only superfund site in our nation that allows public tours unrelated to clean-up.
There is still so much pollution that they have areas of the "refuges" off limits to the public due to high amounts of radiation and other pollutants. But apparently it's safe enough to be a wildlife refuge to Bison, Elk, all different types of birds including Eagles, and hundreds of thousands of cute little Prairie Dogs that dig their tunnels through that disgusting earth.
If you want to learn more you can go to
www.rockyflatsrighttoknow.org
or get the full story at the link in my bio.
