A soil sample with elevated levels of plutonium discovered in the vicinity of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility near Denver has drawn attention from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority on Aug. 16 informed the health department of the sample taken on the parkway’s right-of-way near Indiana Street within the former Rocky Flats buffer zone, now part of a federal wildlife refuge.
Tests on the sample turned up a plutonium level of 264 pCi/g, or picocuries per gram, which is well above the 50 pCi/g cleanup standard to protect public health, said Jennifer Opila, director of the Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division within the state Department of Public Health and Environment.
In an open letter to the community Tuesday, Opila said more sampling and analysis are needed to understand if the finding is a sign of wider contamination or an isolated instance.
“We are taking the sample result seriously because it is much higher than previous samples in the vicinity and higher than the cleanup standard,” Opila stated. The Parkway Authority will do more detailed testing in the vicinity where the single sample was taken.
The state healty agency contacted the U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency regarding the finding.
The Denver Post reported news of the elevated sample Tuesday.
The Rocky Flats weapons plant made plutonium pits, or triggers, for nuclear weapons until it closed in 1992. The Energy Department certified in December 2005 that remediation of Rocky Flats was complete. Much of the old weapons property now comprises the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
Advocacy groups went to court earlier this year to gain access to documents that might provide evidence of residual plutonium contamination and other ongoing environmental risks on the property. Rocky Flats Downwinders and other organizations contend the Energy Department prematurely declared the facility cleaned up. The site is monitored by DOE’s Office of Legacy Management.
