Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West

Environmental History, Jan 2001 by Krupar, Jason N

Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West. By Len Ackland. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. xi + 308 pp. Notes, index. $34-95.

Len Ackland blends information obtained from governmental sources, federal contractors, personal interviews, and articles from local newspapers into a coherent and multilayered history that tells the tale not only of the Rocky Flats nuclear facility, but also of the creation and collapse of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. Ackland is the former editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and currently director for environmental journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Ackland has included the perspectives of the various participants involved in the operations, decisionmaking, and protests against Rocky Flats. By so doing, he demonstrates how the government's production obsession drove local federal officials and contractor personnel to endanger Rocky Flats employees as well as the general public. He has not only retold the stories of the major fires at the plant, such as the 1969 Mother's Day fire, but he shows how narrowly plant officials dodged several major environmental disasters. The need for secrecy, Cold War fears, and the supreme importance of manufacturing weapons components fostered the development of a cultural mentality within Rocky Flats that permitted hazardous waste disposal practices, questionable safety procedures along the assembly lines, and improper storage of refuse and materials.

Ackland pays special attention to the machining of weapons components at Rocky Flats, focusing on the technology of glove boxes and the questionable adjustments made to save money over the years at the facility. The glove boxes were used to protect workers on assembly lines and prevent the release of dangerous materials into the external environment. Flaws in the glove boxes later caused problems for plant managers and employees. In addition, Ackland examines the importance of glove box technology to both the manufacturing processes at the plant and as a key component in many of the fires and environmental dangers at the site. Among the hazardous materials used at Rocky Flats, plutonium posed one of the greatest threats to workers and environment. The glove boxes and other technologies, such as large filter banks, were designed and installed in critical manufacturing buildings at Rocky Flats to prevent the escape of plutonium and other harmful materials from internally controlled areas to the external environment.

Making a Real Killing follows the path established by Rodney Carlisle s study of the Hanford, Washington, and Savannah River nuclear weapon s production reactors (Rodney Carlisle with Joan Zenzen, Supplying the Nuclear Arsenal: American Production Reactors, 1942-1992, John Hopkins University Press, 1996). Ackland traced the evolution of Rocky Flats from the policy considerations made by United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) officials in the 1950s to the actions of the Department of Energy personnel to close and clean up the site. Previous histories of America's nuclear arsenal concentrated on the decisionmakers in Washington, D.C., and not on the actual production and operations of production centers. Studies such as Ackland's serve several purposes. They explain the rationale used by policymakers in selecting manufacturing sites. In an effort to conserve funds and avoid the necessity of creating government towns, AEC administrators deliberately placed new facilities near communities large enough to adequately support plant personnel and families.

Ackland's work demonstrates the transformation of the craftsmanship manufacturing used during the Manhattan Project into the assembly line production of the AEC and its successor agency, the Department of Energy. His exploration of Rocky Flats revealed the influence Colorado politicians exercised on AEC officials and the agency's selection process used in identifying Rocky Flats as a potential site. Prominent Colorado political leaders not only secured the facility for the state but also continued to support the operations of the plant. Only when the national political climate changed did local politicians challenge the safety and the need for the manufacturing center. By the 197os and 198os, the support Rocky Flats once enjoyed was rapidly disappearing. The increased production demands placed upon Rocky Flats by the Reagan administration's defense needs overwhelmed the deteriorating production and safety conditions at the plant site. A siege mentality gripped federal and contractor officials at the center, as employee moral sagged under the pressures. The collapse of local and federal political support of the plant contributed to the multi-agency raid on Rocky Flats in 1989.

While no longer contributing to national defense, Rocky Flats will continue to influence the development and history of the Colorado Front Range region. If any criticism is leveled at this study, it might be that Ackland's attempt to examine all aspects of the Rocky Flats story kept him from targeting specific subjects in depth, such as the local anti-Rocky Flats movement. However, the breadth of his presentation leaves the reader with an appreciation of the complexities of the history of Rocky Flats.