Ex-FBI Agent Charges Feds with Radioactive Coverup at Colorado's Rocky Flats

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Tue, 25 Jan 2005 14:07:00 GMT

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Ex-FBI Agent Charges Feds with Radioactive Coverup at

Colorado's Rocky Flats

 

January 25, 2005 |

 

Ex-FBI Agent Charges Feds with Radioactive Coverup at Colorado's Rocky

Flats

 

In 1989, agent John Lipsky led an FBI raid on the Rocky Flats nuclear

weapons plant in Colorado after receiving reports that the plant posed

a huge public health threat. The raid, which took place over 18 days

and involved more than 100 FBI and EPA officials, gave way to a nearly

three-year criminal investigation into widespread radioactive

contamination of the air, water, and soil at the 6,240-acre site and

the surrounding suburbs of nearby Denver.

 

The raid prompted the Department of Justice (DOJ) to assemble a

special grand jury to investigate the evidence against U.S government

officials and Rockwell International, the private defense contractor

that managed Rocky Flats from 1975 to 1989 on behalf of the Department

of Energy (DOE). The case was settled with a plea bargain agreement,

and DOJ sealed the contamination evidence from the public.

 

Next month, Lipsky will be party to a lawsuit against DOJ -- along

with Wes McKinley, the former leader of the Rocky Flats grand jury,

and Jacque Brever, a former chemical operator at the plant who suffers

from radiation exposure -- in an effort to unseal the documents.

 

The plaintiffs are concerned, in particular, about a 2001

Congressional decision to turn Rocky Flats into a wildlife refuge,

which may include as many as 16 miles of trails for hiking and

horseback riding.

 

Last month Lipsky retired early from the FBI to protest the agency's

orders that he keep mum about the Rocky Flats controversy. " I left so

I could help expose the truth, " he told Grist Magazine. " Without the

truth...there can be no thorough cleanup. "

 

Lipsky describes the DOE's ongoing cleanup effort at the nuke site,

scheduled for completion by next year, as " woefully inadequate -- a

farce. "

 

Before the vote on the Rocky Flats designation, Lipsky wrote an open

letter to Congress: " I am an FBI agent. My superiors have ordered me

to lie about a criminal investigation I headed in 1989. The Justice

Department covered up the truth ... I have refused to follow the

orders ... Some dangerous decisions are now being made based on that

government cover-up. "

 

Critics say that DOE wanted to keep the public in the dark to cut

corners on cost, as well as protect itself from criticism for

environmental negligence. The department allocated $7 billion to the

cleanup. But the plaintiffs say that less than 8 percent of the

allocated sum is even being used to decontaminate the site; the rest

is going to administrative costs and decommissioning the plant.

 

Former Rocky Flats employee Jacque Brever said several fields and

hillsides that had been dumping grounds for toxic and radioactive

wastes have been excluded from the cleanup. Additionally, she said,

the standards for soil and water purification are weak.

 

" There is no question in my mind that the grounds are still hot

[radioactive] at that site, and will be for a long time, " said Brever.

" That plant was spewing radioactive ash and effluent for nearly 40

years. We dumped radioactive stuff in areas they're not even looking

at. We buried drums that corroded underground, and they're looking

only at the surface of the soil. "

 

This could be of particular interest to President Bush, given that

just this month he told The Wall Street Journal of his hopes to spark

a nuclear-power renaissance. " I believe nuclear power answers a lot of

our issues, " he said. " It certainly answers the environmental issue. "

 

###

 

This story was jointly produced by BushGreenwatch and Grist Magazine.

For more on this story, visit Grist Magazine.

 

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