The Colorado Department of Health and Environment expects the organization building a toll road near Denver to continue soil sampling around the site of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility and to submit its results by the end of the year.
A soil sample taken by the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority in May near what is today the Rocky Flats Natural Wildlife Refuge turned up a plutonium level about five times higher than what is considered benign. The authority’s sampling is done around the right-of-way for a 10-mile toll road it is developing near metropolitan Denver.
“We will assess this data and determine any possible next steps to protect public health once we review all of these results,” Laura Dixon, a spokeswoman for the state agency’s Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division, said by email Tuesday.
But based on what is known today, including historic environmental samples and other available information, state experts and toxicologists do not believe there is an immediate public health threat, Dixon said.
Subsequent retesting of the soil sample showed far lower plutonium levels that were within safe limits of 50 picocuries per gram (pCi/g), according to Dixon.
Likewise, on Sept. 6, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a soil sampling report on planned hiking trails at the wildlife refuge. The federal agency said the refuge does not pose a risk to people who use the area for recreation, or for residents who live nearby.
“We believe that further soil sampling and analysis is needed to assess what this elevated Parkway sample may mean: whether it is an isolated instance, or a sign of a wider area of relatively high contamination,” Dixon said.
Between 1952 and 1989, Rocky Flats made plutonium pits for nuclear weapons. In 2005, the Energy Department certified it had completed the $7 billion remediation at the site.
