[CPEO-MEF] RADIATION, REUSE: Prescribed burn at Rocky Flats (CO)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Prescribed Burn at Former Nuclear Weapons Plant Stirs Public Concerns

By Josh Schlossberg
Truthout 
March 14, 2105

This spring, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had planned to conduct a prescribed burn to reduce vegetation and kill invasive weeds on 701 acres of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, nearly 4,000 acres of grassland prairie surrounding the site of a former nuclear weapons production facility outside Arvada, Colorado.

After local uproar, the FWS canceled the spring burn in early February, but burning is still a "management tool" they will consider using in the future, according to Noreen Walsh, regional director for FWS's Mountain-Prairie Region - despite concerns of radioactive contamination.

Local activists and experts, including an air quality meteorologist and a former Department of Energy contractor, argue that burning will release radioactive plutonium from grasses and soils that may drift into nearby communities in Arvada, Broomfield and Boulder, and possibly as far as Denver, which is 16 miles away. The spring burn would've taken place on the southern portion of the wildlife refuge, adjacent to the Candelas and Whisper Creek housing developments.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29537-prescribed-burn-at-former-nuclear-weapons-plant-stirs-public-concerns

--

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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