The Department of Energy almost certainly is responsible for the ongoing exposure of people to highly toxic radioactive plutonium in homes, schools, libraries, shops and workplaces downwind of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory. Some people very likely have had their health damaged. But to date the DOE has done nothing about the problem.

The issue surfaced recently when a citizen sampling project sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center of Boulder found plutonium in dust collected from crawl space beneath a house about one mile downwind of the Rocky Flats plant site. Wind had carried the plutonium from the plant to this location during production years. It had collected in the crawl space since 1960 when the house was built.

The principal product of the Rocky Flats plant was the explosive plutonium "pit" at the core of every warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Some 70,000 pits were produced at the plant between 1952 when production began and 1989 when it ended. Throughout this period tiny plutonium particles were released to the environment by fires, accidents and routine operations. Particles were distributed near and far by the wind common at the site.

Plutonium remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. It emits a type of radiation that cannot penetrate skin, but that may induce cancer or other ailments if it is inhaled or otherwise taken into the body. In 1997 researchers at Columbia University reported that a single plutonium particle lodged in the body could initiate cancer. A 2006 National Academy of Sciences study on low-dose radiation exposure concluded that any exposure is potentially harmful. Plutonium-laden dust thus is especially dangerous. Particles too small to see are not too small to do harm.

If plutonium is present in indoor dust at one house downwind of Rocky Flats it very likely is present in other houses and buildings in the vicinity.

The house where our crawl-space sample was collected had not yet been built at the time of the largest single release of plutonium from Rocky Flats, a fire that occurred in September 1957. Structures that existed at that time could contain plutonium from this event.

The DOE has long known that there`s an area downwind of Rocky Flats that was contaminated with plutonium released from the plant. Scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor to the DOE) mapped the area in 1970. Their map shows a known plutonium-contaminated area of about 30 square miles of land east and southeast of the Rocky Flats site. For their map, see http://leroymoore.wordpress.com

The recent citizen sampling was, so far as we know, the very first time anyone sampled indoor dust in areas near Rocky Flats and had the samples analyzed for plutonium content. One person in our group, writer Kristen Iversen, who will soon publish a book about Rocky Flats, grew up in the contaminated area. She knows of numerous individuals in the neighborhood who have cancer or who died from cancer. She also knows that no professional body has ever monitored the health of affected people in the area of known contamination. No actual health studies have ever been performed.

Based on the foregoing, at a news conference on August 4 Kristen Iversen, Colorado Representative Wes McKinley and the author of this article made two recommendations to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu:

1. That the Department of Energy establish a program to analyze indoor dust for plutonium content for anyone who requests it for a facility located in the area known to be contaminated with plutonium released from Rocky Flats.

2. That the Department of Energy provide ongoing monitoring of the health of people who live in, grew up in, or worked in the area known to be contaminated with plutonium released from Rocky Flats.

We asked Secretary Chu to respond to these recommendations by October 1. We are still awaiting an answer.

LeRoy Moore is a consultant with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.