WESTMINSTER, Colo. — The City of Westminster is weighing new signage to warn the public about potential health risks tied to trails at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, a former nuclear weapons production site that was turned into a wildlife refuge and remains the subject of heated debate.
On Monday night, Westminster City Council reviewed proposed warning signs along trails near the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, where community advocates say radioactive contamination from decades of plutonium bomb component production still lingers.
“Westminster, Arvada, Broomfield are all very much downwind communities of Rocky Flats,” said Nuclear Guardianship Coordinator Chris Allred with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. “It [Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge] was opened by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to public recreation in 2018.”
The facility was shut down in 1989 following an FBI raid and a federal investigation that resulted in Rockwell International, the site’s operator at the time, pleading guilty to environmental crimes, including illegal storage of radioactive waste and violations of the Clean Water Act.
Although a $7 billion cleanup was completed in 2005, Allred and other activists argue the remediation was insufficient and that dangerous particles — including plutonium, americium, uranium, beryllium and radioactive lead — still remain in the soil and air…