me—one sprints, to much applause—and I inch out, my legs wrapped around the pipe’s rusty ridges, my heart thudding. I can’t even dive off the board at the deep end of a swimming pool without serious soul-searching. But failure isn’t an option. I’m the first in my family to try to meet the challenge. Our reputation is at stake. And the esteem of my only friend.
I reach the sharp edge of the pipe. I peer over the rusted rim and see the dark blue circle where the water is deep. It looks to be the size of a large dinner plate. I glance over at Tina on the bank, her hair slicked back in triumph.
“Go!” she says.
I can’t do it.
“Come on,” Tina says. She sounds peeved. A couple of kids laugh. “Holy cow.”
My face flushes. My hammering heart seems to have slid into my stomach. After what seems like a decade or two, I inch back off the pipe and climb the bank.
Tina is gone.
T HERE IS no further word from Dow Chemical. Ed Martell and the other CCEI scientists, worried that the infamous winds at Rocky Flats might have carried lethal particles of plutonium toward an unsuspecting population, initiate an independent investigation. They take soil samples from two to four miles east of the plant and test for plutonium-239—weapons-grade plutonium—and strontium-90. To account for fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, they take soil samples from other sites along the Front Range and estimate the background concentration of radionuclides in surface soil.Comparing these samples will allow them to determine if there is an excessive amount of plutonium in the soil—plutonium specifically from Rocky Flats.
Other people are worried, too, and some citizens begin to organize local meetings. Lloyd Mixon, a farmer near Rocky Flats, talks about deformed pigs and how his hens lay eggs that won’t hatch.The chicks have beaks so curled and deformed they can’t peck their way out of the shells. He wants to know what’s happening at Rocky Flats.
Bini Abbott, a local horsewoman, also begins to worry about how Rocky Flats might be affecting her livestock. For nearly ten years she and her husband have owned a large ranch a mile and a half southeast and downwind of the plant. She often shows her horses at local shows and gymkhanas, where she sees some of the kids from Bridledale and Meadowgate. Karma and I envy her horses, her horse trailers, her professional skill. We want to be like Bini when we grow up.
Bini buys several horses each year off the local racetrack and trains them for jumping. Sometimes she buys mares for breeding. She always gets a few crooked foals—it’s part of the business—but ever since she moved near Rocky Flats it seems worse than what might be expected. She has high hopes for one mare in particular, a descendant of a Kentucky Derby winner. The mare has two foals before she has to be put down herself due to health problems. The first foal lives for a week. Bini is determined that the second foal, born two years later, will live. But this foal, a little colt, also has problems. For an entire week she camps out in his stall around the clock. March is cold in Colorado—still winter, really—and Bini’s husband brings blankets and hot meals out to the barn.
The colt dies.
After hearing about Ed Martell’s soil sampling, Bini begins to keep organs of the deformed animals in her freezer. They have misplaced bladders or hearts, sometimes other problems. Bini is a practical and down-to-earth person. She doesn’t scare easily. But someday, she thinks, those organs will be tested.
In February 1970, the CCEI completes the report on its investigation. Nearly all the soil samples that were taken show plutonium contamination that originated at Rocky Flats.Plutonium deposits in the top centimeter of soil taken from locations east of the plant are up to four hundred times the average background concentrations from global fallout.In some places, the level is 1,500 times higher than normal.
I reach the sharp edge of the pipe. I peer over the rusted rim and see the dark blue circle where the water is deep. It looks to be the size of a large dinner plate. I glance over at Tina on the bank, her hair slicked back in triumph.
“Go!” she says.
I can’t do it.
“Come on,” Tina says. She sounds peeved. A couple of kids laugh. “Holy cow.”
My face flushes. My hammering heart seems to have slid into my stomach. After what seems like a decade or two, I inch back off the pipe and climb the bank.
Tina is gone.
T HERE IS no further word from Dow Chemical. Ed Martell and the other CCEI scientists, worried that the infamous winds at Rocky Flats might have carried lethal particles of plutonium toward an unsuspecting population, initiate an independent investigation. They take soil samples from two to four miles east of the plant and test for plutonium-239—weapons-grade plutonium—and strontium-90. To account for fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, they take soil samples from other sites along the Front Range and estimate the background concentration of radionuclides in surface soil.Comparing these samples will allow them to determine if there is an excessive amount of plutonium in the soil—plutonium specifically from Rocky Flats.
Other people are worried, too, and some citizens begin to organize local meetings. Lloyd Mixon, a farmer near Rocky Flats, talks about deformed pigs and how his hens lay eggs that won’t hatch.The chicks have beaks so curled and deformed they can’t peck their way out of the shells. He wants to know what’s happening at Rocky Flats.
Bini Abbott, a local horsewoman, also begins to worry about how Rocky Flats might be affecting her livestock. For nearly ten years she and her husband have owned a large ranch a mile and a half southeast and downwind of the plant. She often shows her horses at local shows and gymkhanas, where she sees some of the kids from Bridledale and Meadowgate. Karma and I envy her horses, her horse trailers, her professional skill. We want to be like Bini when we grow up.
Bini buys several horses each year off the local racetrack and trains them for jumping. Sometimes she buys mares for breeding. She always gets a few crooked foals—it’s part of the business—but ever since she moved near Rocky Flats it seems worse than what might be expected. She has high hopes for one mare in particular, a descendant of a Kentucky Derby winner. The mare has two foals before she has to be put down herself due to health problems. The first foal lives for a week. Bini is determined that the second foal, born two years later, will live. But this foal, a little colt, also has problems. For an entire week she camps out in his stall around the clock. March is cold in Colorado—still winter, really—and Bini’s husband brings blankets and hot meals out to the barn.
The colt dies.
After hearing about Ed Martell’s soil sampling, Bini begins to keep organs of the deformed animals in her freezer. They have misplaced bladders or hearts, sometimes other problems. Bini is a practical and down-to-earth person. She doesn’t scare easily. But someday, she thinks, those organs will be tested.
In February 1970, the CCEI completes the report on its investigation. Nearly all the soil samples that were taken show plutonium contamination that originated at Rocky Flats.Plutonium deposits in the top centimeter of soil taken from locations east of the plant are up to four hundred times the average background concentrations from global fallout.In some places, the level is 1,500 times higher than normal.
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