Little about the history of the Rocky Flats nuclear trigger plant engenders the trust of Coloradans.
From its secretive Cold War era roots, to suppressed reports about contamination, to a stifled grand jury investigating environmental crimes, there remains a lingering suspicion that we still don’t know everything about the former plant.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s recently announced plans to digitally copy — then destroy — 500 boxes of records pertaining to the plant will only make matters worse.
Legitimate arguments can be made about how cutting-edge advances in software and hardware quickly become outdated, making it very possible that future access to the digitally copied records would be difficult.
Think about it: How many floppy disks do you have lurking in the back of a desk drawer that you no longer have any practical way of accessing?
Technical issues can be overcome with an adequate budget for updates, but how likely is that?
More important, though, is how the public perceives the trustworthiness of the DOE.
The department was painted as a major villain in a class action lawsuit over off-site plutonium contamination from the plant, 16 miles northwest of Denver. Lawyers for the owners of 12,000 properties near the plant, who won a nearly $554 million judgment in 2006, attacked the DOE with allegations the department improperly designated information as classified in order to keep misdeeds and mistakes secret.
That’s not the only instance where the public has been left to wonder about what really went on at Rocky Flats.
The now-infamous Rocky Flats special grand jury is a 16-year-old wound that has never healed. The grand jury investigated environmental crimes at the plant for 2-1/2 years, sifting through hundreds of boxes of evidence and testimony from more than 100 witnesses.
Grand jurors were discharged in 1992, days before federal prosecutors crafted a plea agreement with Rockwell International Corporation, one of the contractors that operated the plant.
The jurors have been struggling to be heard ever since, filing federal actions in an effort to get permission to release publicly their allegations and beliefs about what went on at the plant.
A decision last week by Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to keep much of the jury’s contentions under wraps only deepens the air of mystery surrounding Rocky Flats.
It is against this backdrop that the decision to destroy 500 boxes of original records will be viewed, regardless of efforts to explain how they would all be diligently copied and preserved.
If the DOE wants to make digital copies of the plant’s records to offer greater access, that’s fine. The public would welcome the access. But the department should preserve the originals so people have one less reason to think they’re not hearing the whole story about Rocky Flats.
The nuclear trigger factory may be gone, but its legacy will linger for a long time — and it’s important that citizens know as much as possible about its history.
