Plutonium: A Permanent Problem

“The clean-up is nowhere near complete.”

Although the Rocky Flats area of Jefferson County has been said to be completely clean from its past usage as a nuclear manufacturing facility, that may not actually be the case according to Michael E. Ketterer, PhD.

Despite ongoing clean-up efforts, there still is plutonium material at the former nuclear production facility, and it could potentially be there for hundreds of thousands of years. The worst of the contamination has been cleaned, as well as the buildings on the facility.

However the issue remains in the soil. Plutonium traces are found in the topsoil and sub-soil ground areas in Rocky Flats, and those soils can be moved and spread by wind, water, and animal movement beyond the area.

Ketterer will be speaking along with two other experts at Plutonium: Permanent Problem at Rocky Flats, a forum, being held Thursday, July 30 at 7:00 p.m. at Naropa University.