Making the Impossible Possible: Closing Rocky Flats-Ahead of Schedule and under Budget

摘要

To a large percentage of the 2.5 million inhabi-tants of the nearby Denver-Boulder metropol- itan area, the words "Rocky Flats" in the mid-1990s evoked images of environmental crimes, rampant plutonium contamination, and secretive government agencies. Today, people living in surrounding communities are beginning to think of Rocky Flats in much the same way as residents did prior to 1950: a beautiful, high-prairie mesa at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, teeming with wildlife, rare vegetation, and majestic views of both the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains to the west and the high plains to the east. The transformation is the result of a dramatically successful, 10-year effort by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the state of Colorado, local communities, and Kaiser-Hill Co. LLC and its thousands of employees to accomplish what U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard described as "making the impossible possible."