[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION: "Hungry goats offered as alternative to proposed burn at Rocky Flats refuge" (CO)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Hungry goats offered as alternative to proposed burn at Rocky Flats refuge
701-acre plot at former DOE site eyed for potential springtime blaze

By Charlie Brennan
Daily Camera (CO)
January 29, 2015

Lani Malmberg is ready, willing and able to bring 1,000 goats to Rocky Flats. Or 2,000, if that's what it takes.

A self-described "gypsy goatherder" who has worked all over the country and frequently in Colorado and Wyoming, Malmberg said she could eliminate the need for a possible 701-acre controlled burn at the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge by turning her goats loose there.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to make a decision soon whether to go ahead with the burn this spring, as part of its management plan of the former nuclear weapons plant property, in order reduce its fuel load and to corral invasive species.

Hearing that the agency considers grazing to be currently not feasible, Malmberg used a one-word rejoinder redolent of what is typically managed in a barnyard with a sturdy shovel.

"I am a scientist and my animals are my tools, so I can't allow them to be hurt and I'm not afraid to work there and I never have been," Malmberg said Thursday, while driving on Interstate 70 near Grand Junction. "As a scientist and a wise person, it's insane to burn that."

The refuge was created in 2006 in the wake of the nuclear weapons site's closure, and a $7 billion cleanup was finished in 2005. Concerns that a controlled burn there could put plutonium into the air have caused Boulder's Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center and surrounding communities to take a stance against that happening.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_27421925/hungry-goats-offered-alternative-proposed-burn-rocky-flats

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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