The bait-and-switch cleanup

Moore, LeRoy

doi:10.2968/061001012

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…For many locals whose efforts to close the plant spanned decades, refuge opposition was inseparable from criticism of cleanup. As cleanup wound down, Moore (who had campaigned against the plant since 1979) contended that if the site's intended future use had been residential, farmland or public park, the operation would have been more rigorous: refuge status was an 'excuse for a cheaper cleanup' (Moore, 2005).…”

Section: Cleaning Up the Messmentioning

confidence: 99%

From hazard to habitat (or hazardous habitat)

Coates

2013

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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Rocky Flats (RF) is a former nuclear weapons manufacturing complex in Colorado, 26 km northwest of downwind Denver, at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains ' Front Range. At RF, between 1952 and 1989, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and its successors manufactured plutonium triggers. After remediation (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005), 4000 acres of buffer zone were transferred to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), to manage as Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge (2007). Drawing on research materials from local libraries and archives, this essay explores the 'weapons to wildlife' (W2W) conversion of a militarized environment in Denver's 'Gunbelt'. The various phases in RF's demilitarization (closure, cleanup, transition to wildlife refuge and refuge management planning) are examined with reference to recognition of biodiversity value, debate over the ex-plant's future, and options for running a refuge still in an arrested state of development -closed to the public for want of funding. A further aim is to bring to the attention of physical geographers a growing body of scholarship by human geographers on environmental contamination at former nuclear sites and debates over remediation and post-industrial uses -and to contribute the additional perspective of an environmental historian.

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Section: Cleaning Up the Messmentioning

confidence: 99%

From hazard to habitat (or hazardous habitat)

Coates

2013

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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“…For that matter, the long-term effects of plutonium contamination on wildlife remains an ecological concern. In any event, the 1995 recommendation of the Future Site Uses Working Group for eventual cleanup to background levels was disregarded in the final cleanup (Moore, 2005).…”

Section: Office [Us Gao] 2006)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Remediation, land use, and risk at Rocky Flats, and a comparison with Hanford

Abbotts

2011

Remediation Journal

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US Department of Energy (US DOE) responsibilities for its former national atomic weapons complex include remediation of the Rocky Flats facility near Denver, Colorado. In 1993, the site's primary mission shifted from “production'' of plutonium components for atomic weapons to cleanup of extensive radioactive and chemical contamination representing the legacy of production activities. Remediation was governed by the agreements between the US DOE as the responsible party and the US Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Colorado as joint regulators. In 1995, the Rocky Flats Future Use Working Group issued its final report, recommending among other features that long‐term cleanup reduce contamination levels to background. This article describes the circumstances that led the US DOE to complete the Rocky Flats cleanup more quickly and makes comparisons to the situation at the US DOE's Hanford site. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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“…DOE and regulators, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) had to ensure that the cleanup met the level required to protect a wildlife refuge worker. The refuge worker provided a`risk fix' essential to the successful turnover of the site (Moore, 2005). Compared with future use as housing or farming, wildlife refuge designation enabled a cheaper, faster cleanup due to the limited human contact entailed by this end-state scenario.…”

Section: Refuge Fixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alien Still Life: Distilling the Toxic Logics of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge

Krupar

2011

Environ Plan D

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“Alien still life” examines the conversion of Rocky Flats, a plutonium factory located near Denver, Colorado, from a nuclear weapons plant to a national wildlife refuge. It argues that the territorial and administrative category of ‘wildlife refuge’ aided an incentives-based cleanup and accelerated turnover of the site to the public as a limited-use recreational space, in the process ‘fixing’ waste to external wilderness. Simultaneously, the technique of ‘legacy management’, a response to the growing number of decommissioned and remediated US Department of Energy nuclear facilities, mobilizes the reduction, containment, and/or denial of Rocky Flats's history and toxicity through discursive and territorial means, such as the portrayal of nature as purity. The resultant ‘alien still life’ marks the voids in the public record, the alienation of the environment from former Rocky Flats workers, and the reconceptualization of ethics necessary to challenge the suspension of politics achieved by the nature refuge fix. The paper tracks subtle shifts in the memory, rhetoric, and politics needed to convert the industrial territory of Rocky Flats to a ‘wild’ space. In an effort to counteract the spectacle of nature as purity, and to reimagine an environmental ethics and political ecology attentive to waste, the layered narrative approach seeks to ‘put waste back into nature’, confronting the radioactive legacies of the Cold War.

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The bait-and-switch cleanup

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

From hazard to habitat (or hazardous habitat)

From hazard to habitat (or hazardous habitat)

Remediation, land use, and risk at Rocky Flats, and a comparison with Hanford

Alien Still Life: Distilling the Toxic Logics of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge

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