Date: Wed

Hello Nukenet


For two weeks in a row
elevated readings of plutonium have been found in
tributaries downstream from the ill-sited Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons
Facility. Experts at Environmental Information Network assert that it is due
to remobilization of plutonium from supersaturated conditions at the facility
from high precipitation. Be assured that although one microcurie of plutonium
is a lethal dose
there is no danger to the public in reported minute amounts
- which have had the controversial "official background count" already
deleted from the sample reading:

8/20/97 Denver Post
By Mark Eddy
Environment Writer:

Walnut Creek plutonium levels prompt water retesting

Water from Walnut Creek downstream from Rocky Flats is being retested because
recent samples showed increased levels of plutonium
the company hired to
oversee cleanup of the former nuclear weapons manufacturing plant said
Tuesday.

The average concentration of plutonium in Walnut Creek at the Indiana Street
test site was 0.465 picocuries per liter for the period from mid-June to
early July
said Jennifer Thompson
spokeswoman for Kaiser-Hill
the
contracting firm.

The accepted plutonium standard for water leaving the site is 0.15 picocuries
per liter. A picocurie is a measurement of the concentration of a specific
kind of radiation in liquid.

The water is not used for drinking purposes and the plutonium levels aren't
high enough to threaten public health
said Steve Tarlton
manager for Rocky
Flats at eh Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The values are still low enough and of short duration enough that they would
not present a health risk even if they went into a water supply, which at
that point they did not,
Tarlton said.

Yet because previous tests on the water never have shown those levels of
plutonium
health officials are scrambling to find the cause.

The original water samples will also be retested to determine if the readings
are due to lab error
Thompson said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: What is NOT said here
is that the Indiana Street and Walnut Creek
junction
it is a public road
and the water flows to Great Western
Reservoir
which WAS the public drinking water supply for the City of
Broomfield until recently
when it was abandoned for alternate water supplies
due to RF contamination - also NO DANGER TO THE PUBLIC!