How many radioactive dumps are there in Colorado?

By Adrienne Anderson

The count keeps growing, but in the Denver/Boulder metropolitan area alone, some new ones are being discovered, while others are prompting renewed calls for action, having been long-ignored or inadequately addressed.

Among the list, the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, slated to become a public recreational area, the City of Boulder-owned Valmont Butte, where radioactive water has been know to have contaminated offsite wells to the north for decades, but which the City is now seeking to transfer to Native American tribal ownership, the plutonium-soaked Lowry Landfill near Aurora and several others sites further east along Quincy Road, including several former Titan I missile silos, and also a former depleted uranium test firing range the Colorado State Land Board acquired from the military and now has flipped to an Australian corporation to turn into a large housing development (see related articles at this website for  further information about why none of these actions should occur, given risks of public exposure to these dangerous materials).

Polluters and those in government protecting their interest over public health and safety concerns seem to have a preferred method of dealing with most of these hot properties: 1) deny it's there; 2) deceive the public over its hidden hazards; 3) dump dirt on top of it; 4) divert the liability by transferring it into public ownership or an entity that stands to profit by minimizing its risks; 5) deploy PR teams to defame any critics seeking to fully disclose the facts in the public's interest; and 6) dress up the dumpsite's public image, portraying it as a great place to live and raise your kids or take your family to picnic, seeking to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear among the radioactive dusts.

For example, at the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, where the military conducted a nuclear weapons training school, toxic trash was dumped for decades along the southeast portion of the base, along Alameda Avenue. Progressing over the years from east to west, trenches were dug, and then filled with toxic and radioactive wastes along with other trash. The dump from the early years then was covered over and turned in to a golf course, now known as Mira Vista, leaving the westerly portion of the grounds and its potent contents partially buried. After the base closed in 1994, a new residential community was built up at Lowry.

According to a 1998 CU student report, the lower income housing was located over the most contaminated zones, many of them throughout the area, while the high-end homes were put in the less environmentally impacted areas, leading to charges of environmental racism by student researchers. After thousands of new housing units were built and occupied, the radioactive dumping grounds remained, land lying dormant adjacent to the Amli multi-unit apartment complex to its west and the Windsor Gardens residential units on the south.

In 2003, records show, a contractor was hired to haul approximately 15,000 truckloads of soil from off-site to cover up the dump, which the Air Force's own archived documents from decades earlier had ID'd as a “radioactive disposal area.” This huge amount of dirt was mostly hauled from the TREX construction site at I-25 over a span of several months during the dark of night, cited as a lighter traffic period. During the Lowry dump cover-up, truck drivers were instructed to dump their loads using u-turns so as not to set off their back-up safety alarms and risk waking the neighbors.

Today, the entire area is noticeably elevated and stands above the land around it. An untrained observer might consider the fenced property an ideal place for kids to ride dirt bikes or sled its slopes. Instead, plans march forward for a new development to be built atop the dump. The prospective developer - IRG (International Risk Group), which bought the property for twelve cents per acre - has claimed it might add a “hard cap,” (i.e. cement) over the dirt (now referred to as a “soft cap”).

No mention is made, however, of the radioactive legacy lurking below the bottomless dump, which has leached high levels of radioactive elements contaminating the region's groundwater and Westerly Creek, which meanders throughout the area and northward. Instead, IRG touts its proposed development for it scenic views of the mountains, proximity to the golf course and other nearby upscale amenities.

What could lurk below? Archived Air Force documents researched show that a 4'x4' once fenced-off burial site held a cemented cask of radioactive wastes. Further records indicate that a Rocky Flats employee who had previously worked at the base had cautioned that the Westerly Creek Dam was being built atop a radioactive disposal area he knew of from his time there.

At a February 8th meeting with Denver Mayor Hickenlooper, Lowry residents and representative from neighborhoods surrounding the former base raised concerns over new plans for further development proposed at Lowry, citing road congestion and other factors. One resident addressed the Mayor about whether the contents of the proposed “Lowry Vista” parcel's land was fully known and disclosed. Mayor Hickenlooper promised attendees that regarding any new developments at Lowry, the federal government would not trump the City's local control. “I guarantee it,” said Hickenlooper.

Previously, the City of Denver refused to take title to the dumping grounds for open space purposes, yet whether they will allow its development by a private party remains to be seen. The Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment has not signed off on the safety of the site for such use, saying in a January 4, 2006 covenant agreement that the land could only be used as open space or a non-irrigated park, while curiously denying any concern over the dump's radiation-contaminated groundwater.

 In August 2007, RMPJC's Nuclear Nexus Project met with Denver City Councilwoman Marcia Johnson and provided her with documents regarding the dump's highly radioactive groundwater. This prompted her to make an inquiry of the CDPHE about the site's condition, and obtained a response that the CDPHE had not signed off on any use as a residential development.  

RMPJC has been notifying area residents' groups and the CDPHE of concerns that the radioactive landfill's contents must be safely excavated and removed to a more suitable location to remove the ongoing source now cocntaminating the region's groundwater and posing long-range downgradient risks.

Against the denials and deception, citizens must peek under the covers of such sites for protective action through discovery and dedicated oversight. We must demand that our communities and environment not be discarded to radioactive wastes and their long-lived legacy.  As much of these wastes were generated for war-related activities, our greatest threat may be lurking under or around our own homes, where true “homeland security” really matters.

Let's end this war and turn the wastes of war into a war against wastes.

Adrienne Anderson is Coordinator of the Nuclear Nexus Project: Working to End Local Hazards and the Global Threat. She served on the Environmental Studies faculty at CU Boulder from 1993-2005 teaching courses such as “Environmental Ethics” and “The War Environment.”

NOTE: The dumpsite referred to at the Lowry Air Force Base in Denver is different that the commonly referred to “Lowry Landfill” which is in Arapahoe County, southeast of Aurora.

This one is in Denver, along Alameda Avenue and east of Quebec Street.

 A version of this column was published Friday, February 15, 2008 by the Colorado Daily.