Rocky Flats elk herd. Image: Michael Kodas
By Eric Freedman
On arrival, Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge is, frankly, uninviting. A bevy of heavy trucks heading to and from the adjacent aggregates mining site churn up clouds of dust as they pass the multi-padlocked refuge gate A faded sign with the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) logo announces “AREA BEYOND THIS SIGN CLOSED. All public entry prohibited.” Just outside the refuge entrance, RVs are crowded into a storage area at the edge of an underground natural gas pipeline. Six white wind turbines tower incongruously nearby.
I couldn’t have written that vivid description of Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado– the place where all of the country’s plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons had been manufactured during the Cold War and later a heavily contaminated Superfund site — unless I’d been there. Continue reading
