Soil samples taken since last summer along a right-of-way for a stretch of highway near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant have not detected any high levels of radiative contamination, a Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) said this week.
The Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority conducted more sampling along the route of a planned 10-mile toll road after reporting last August it turned up a sample with radiation levels at 264 picocuries per gram – more than five times the 50-picocurie level considered safe for people.
“The department has received all 467 soil sampling data points from the Parkway Authority [in recent months],” CDPHE spokeswoman Lauren Errico said by email Monday. “After initial analysis of the additional soil sampling results and other information, we found that there were no other elevated results.”
The agency is still analyzing data for a report to local governments next month, Errico said. “We have heard and continue to hear community concerns and will continue to evaluate next steps as necessary,” she added.
Since the original elevated sample, radiation levels in all additional material have been well within human safety levels, Jennifer Opila, director of the CDPHE Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division, said in November.
Nevertheless, the City Council of Broomfield, Colo, passed a resolution on Feb. 25 expressing its intent to withdraw from the highway authority because of public concern over possible contamination along the toll road that will skirt the edge of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Broomfield is roughly seven miles from Rocky Flats and is one of several localities active in the metro Denver parkway project.
Rocky Flats made the fissile plutonium pits for nuclear weapons from the 1950s until 1989. In 2005, the Energy Department certified it had completed the $7 billion remediation at the site, now monitored by DOE’s Office of Legacy Management.
The refuge, formerly part of the weapons plant property, was created in 2007 when it was transferred to the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service from the Energy Department.
