Kristen Iversen's Blog: Slow Fire: A blog about writing, reading, and making a difference, page 2

Citizen’s Petition to Stop Development on Contaminated Land

A local Colorado resident living near Rocky Flats has started a petition to oppose development on contaminated land around the Rocky Flats site. The petition already has nearly 2,000 signatures! People who live near Rocky Flats deserve to be informed about contamination in the soil and air, and the building of the Jefferson Parkway will not only stir up contamination in the soil but lay the groundwork for expansive future development of homes in the area. Here is the petition: “Building a tolled four-lane highway and future hiking and biking trails on Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge, formerly Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, will cause plutonium and other radioactive materials to be released into the air, soil and water endangering the health, safety and well-being of surrounding communities. We need to set a precedent to every superfund site that any development on former nuclear sites is not acceptable!”

And the link.

The Tucson Festival of Books

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to New York, where I had the great honor of attending a luncheon for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award finalists, and then to Denver to see my father, and then on to Tucson for the Tucson Festival of Books.  The past several months of being on the road with Full Body Burden have taught me how to travel light and keep a suitcase packed and ready!  It has all been such a thrill.  And I’m very happy to report that my father is now out of the hospital and has improved dramatically.  All of my siblings flew in to Denver, and it was great to see everyone.  My presentation in Tucson was filmed by C-Span and you can catch the video here.  Thanks to everyone who attended!  We had a great turnout.

The Rocky Flats Controversy Continues

January 12, 2013

The controversy about development around Rocky Flats is an ongoing, raging debate, and at this point it looks like the new parkway will go through, despite vehement opposition from local citizens and environmental groups.  It’s very important for citizens to understand the health and environmental risks of the proposed Jefferson Parkway and the residential and business development that will follow.  This very thorough article discusses why activists and local residents are concerned about building a highway on land contaminated with plutonium.  There are also some excellent maps.  http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-10451-paving-a-contaminate.html

 

Area of Proposed New Highway on Contaminated Land Adjacent to Rocky Flats

Plutonium contamination in neighborhoods around Rocky Flats

Due to emails from readers, I am reposting this map that shows areas of plutonium contamination in areas around Rocky Flats.

Vision Without Fission

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August 4: Santa Fe, NM. Kristen will be speaking at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe with speakers including Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research; Bill Hartung, senior research professor at the New America Foundation and expert on weapons proliferation; Cynthia Jurs, Buddhist teacher and peace activist, and others. 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Kristen speaks from 11:15-12:30.

August 5: Ashley Pond Park, Los Alamos National Labs, NM. Kristen will be speaking at an all-day event that includes speakers, music, teach-ins, and information tables, including a moment of silence in recognition of the exact time the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 67 years ago (with an audio link to the commemoration event in Hiroshima). Followed by a ceremonial floating of lanterns of Ashley Pond.

The Nation

At the top of the hill behind our house stands the Arvada cemetery. The year 1863 is etched in a stone marker at the entrance. The cemetery works like a magnet. As soon as our mother puts us out into the yard for the afternoon—just like the kids and grandkids on the family farm back in Iowa, who were expected to fend for themselves for the day—my  sisters and I scramble over the fence and head for the hill. We trek across the field behind the row of backyards and  through the old apple orchard and get up to the creek, where we balance a flat plank across the shallow, sluggish water  and tiptoe across. At the crest of the hill stand row after row of headstones. Some have the names of children or images  of their faces etched in the stone, and we stay away from those. We look down the hill to our house and imagine our mother, big and round, lying  on her bed and waiting for the next baby, a boy at last, she’s sure of it. A little farther, we can see the Arvada Villa Pizza Parlor and the Arvada Beauty Academy. Between our neighborhood and the long, dark line of mountains stands a single white water tower, all by itself.

 

Kristen Iversen’s excerpt of FULL BODY BURDEN in The Nation, June 11, 2012 .pdf

Reader’s Digest

Each morning over coffee, I scour the want ads. It’s 1994; I’m a single mother and graduate student who needs a job with  flexible hours. And then, there it is, a large ad: administrative skills, flexible hours, $12.92 an hour. The Rocky Flats  Environmental Technology Site is hiring. Start immediately, it says. Environmental Technology Site? It used to be known as the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility. When I was growing up nearby, my family and most of our neighbors thought Rocky Flats made household-cleaning supplies. In fact, Rocky Flats secretly produced plutonium triggers or  “pits” for nuclear bombs—some 70,000 plutonium triggers over the course of more than 30 years (see timeline). By the late 1970s, as the truth began to spread, people protested at the bomb plant and worried about radioactive and toxic  waste in surrounding neighborhoods. Plutonium-trigger production ended in 1989 after the FBI and EPA raided the plant, leading to a grand jury investigation (which was eventually thwarted). Still, the site remained open, and a new company, EG&G, took over.

But in ’94 I don’t know all this. . . .

 

Kristen Iversen’s, July 12, 2012 excerpt of FULL BODY BURDEN in Reader’s Digest .pdf

Map of Area Around Rocky Flats

This is another image that may be useful to people who live near Rocky Flats or in the Denver metro area.

The plume of the 1957 fire at Rocky Flats

Readers have asked me to post the chart showing the plume from the devastating 1957 fire at Rocky Flats. Two years after this fire, the surrounding area showed an increase in childhood leukemia and other cancers and health effects. Contamination from the 1969 Mother’s Day fire followed a similar path.