Rocky Flats

[Uberjager]

So I've been talking with an engineer, who worked there during it's heyday, and my oh my does he have crazy stories.

Apparently when a new building was being constructed, excavators hit plutonium that had been carelessly buried in the 50's, so the excavators were cut apart with a laser, and sent to Idaho where they could be disposed of along with the plutonium. I've also heard of several small plutonium fires that happened, but apparently they got taken care of right away.

When my mom was in college, her chemistry professor worked there, and he was hospitalized for four months after touching a crate.

Anyone have any stories about this crazy place?

[Fmedges]

I know a guy that is dying from cancer from working there. 20 of the 22 guys that worked on that program have died of cancer and the two still alive currently have cancer.

[Mazin]

My Uncle retired from the DOE there. He has had horrible eye issues (Graves disease) ever since. I have heard some stuff but I couldn't imagine what kinda crap you'd see working there.
BTW great bar over by there (Forget the name) but have an awesome burger and a fresh fish fry once a week.

[jhood001]

BTW great bar over by there (Forget the name) but have an awesome burger and a fresh fish fry once a week.

The name is tricky - Rocky Flats Lounge.

And they have FRIED CHEESE CURDS!

If you're the sick sort and you're a Packers fan, it is THE place to be for games.

[Richard K]

Before I retired I was the only LEO in my Dept. with a Q clearance and allowed to enter building 9 or 109 (I forget which). Luckily, I never had to.

[Mazin]

The name is tricky - Rocky Flats Lounge.

And they have FRIED CHEESE CURDS!

If you're the sick sort and you're a Packers fan, it is THE place to be for games.

looong night at the .gov man

[Big Wall]

In '97 or '98 I worked as a tour bus driver. I got to take a bunch of Russian officials to visit Rocky Flats as part of a you show us your clean up attempts and we will show you ours kind of deal. I thought I would be sitting in the bus all day, but they asked for my id and after a quick background check I got to go along on the tour.

Interesting bits:

1 The worst of the mess was caused by Coors making porcelian there.

2 They paved a parking lot over an area of contaminated ground and had to buy everyone who parked there a new car.

3 Their cover story was that they were a Saran-Wrap factory. They even gave the employees Saran-Wrap coupons to hand out at Christmas time.

4 We suited up and toured one of the clean up areas. At one point the lady giving the tour said "I can't tell you what this is but if you use your imagination you can figure it out." It was the form for hydrolically pressing the outer cover for the warheads. We had to stand in a sensor when we left the area to make sure we weren't contaminated.

5 All of the signs in the clean up area were in both english and russian as part of the tour each other's sites agreement.

I can't confirm this but, I met a guy once who said that he worked at Rocky Flats. He said that he was watching a tv show about biological weapons. He said all of a sudden a picture of him came on and he was bottling up biological weapons. He said that he had no idea what he was doing when he worked there.

[JM Ver. 2.0]

My grandfather worked there... He shot uranium and plutonium with lasers and measured the purity.

[whichfinger]

One of my uncles worked there in the 50s and 60s. It killed him.

[JohnnyEgo]

My father took a couple of tours of the place back in it's heyday. He was an engineer who worked on high level and low level nuclear waste disposal. He turned out fine, and I can crawl up walls!