Neighbors Keep a Wary Eye on Rocky Flats Plant but Resist Moving

Bini Abbott is not the nervous type. This she will tell you while her weathered hands clench the halter of a spooked stallion being shod for the first time. “Gutsy,” she says of herself.

And so it is only with great reluctance that she admits to wearing a surgical mask while doing chores on those occasional days when the winds really kick up off the Rocky Mountain foothills just beyond her ranch.

It’s the dust she worries about. Dust from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant barely a mile away, the Energy Department facility now under criminal investigation for illegal burning and dumping of hazardous wastes.

Favors Closing Plant

“I’d be real happy if they closed it down and used it for peaceful purposes instead,” Abbott said. “I sure don’t want to see all those people lose their jobs, but we already have enough plutonium triggers to blow up the world 100 times.”

A former teacher, Abbott has lived here for 30 years and follows environmental issues concerning Rocky Flats closely. “Rocky Flats has lied and lied and lied for years,” she charges. Still, she hasn’t moved.

“People who live around here aren’t going to say very much, because as soon as they open their mouths, property values go down,” she said. “Nobody’s dropped dead yet.”

Billy Chisolm lives even closer to Rocky Flats, in the modest brick home he built 17 years ago and plans to spend his retirement in a decade from now. He smiles and shrugs when talk turns to “the plant.”

“I’m really not concerned,” he said. “I know environmentalists keep an eye on them. I have my five grandkids out here all the time.

‘Just Spend the Money’

“Closing the plant is not the answer. The plant is a vital part of our national security,” Chisolm said. “The government should just spend the money to make it as safe as possible. Instead we spend billions of dollars overseas on foreigners who just stab us in the back.”

The range of opinions about Rocky Flats among its neighbors seems as wide and varied as the fabled mountains towering over the controversial facility, which federal agents searched for evidence of environmental crime for a fifth day Saturday.

The semi-rural landscape is a mix of meandering pastures with grazing horses on old family farms and brand-new tracts where young, professional families have invested in the American dream.

“We’ve kind of looked the other way, because we didn’t want to face it,” said David Weatherspoon, who bought his two-story home just last October. He can see Rocky Flats lights from his driveway.

Writes to Governor

Not long ago, he was worried enough to write Gov. Roy Romer a letter asking about reported soil contamination at the Flats.

“I got back a form letter that said, ‘Thank you for your concern over fishing conditions in the Arkansas River.’ Somebody on his staff must have punched the wrong button on the word processor,” he said.

Weatherspoon figures he would lose around $30,000 if he bailed out now, just walked away. Still, he thinks about it. He has two small children.

“I feel guilty about living here,” he said, “because of them.”