Interview with Ken Freiberg Former Rocky Flats Employee

May 28th, 2014 The Rocky Flats Institute and Museum

Arvada, Colorado Interviewed by Julie Speer

Julie: Tell me again really briefly what your education was and how you got into working at Rocky Flats. Ken: Well, I started out in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and joined the military in 1949. At that time I just had the high school education, basically speaking, and went into the military with no other education to speak of. I spent the next four years in the Air Force, during which I gained two years of college going through correspondence courses such as engineering, physics and later project management; things of this nature when I was stationed overseas. Julie: What brought you to Colorado? Ken: What brought me to Colorado is when I left Biloxi, Mississippi, I became an airborne radio operator. I was stationed at Lowry Air Force base in 1950. Korea broke loose very shortly after that in June of ‘50 and in turn I was an airborne radio operator and we were flying from Lowry, clear over to Japan and then making hops to Korea picking up the wounded. We’d fly them back to Japan and then the long hop back to Lowry and the Fitzsimons Army Hospital. So I was stationed at Lowry for quite a while. I was stationed there then until April of ‘51 when they sent me to Greenland, which was much worse than Korea, and in turn I spent a year-and-a-half in Korea. During that time I did more of the educational background. I liked Colorado and decided to come back here and make this my home. When I got discharged in December of ‘52, I turned in an application for Rocky Flats because I had heard about Rocky Flats and wanted to work in Colorado. Very shortly after that they hired me and I went off to work the first of July in 1953 at Rocky Flats. Julie: So tell me what your first job was at Rocky Flats. Ken: My first job at Rocky Flats was Health Physics monitor and County Technician. What that involved primarily was detecting radioactive materials and helping to protect the workers from any airborne alpha contamination or also from the gamma, beta or neutron contamination and radiation that we did get from radioactive materials. I started working in building 44 which was primarily the depleted uranium, which was 238. I went from there very shortly to building 81 which was enriched uranium and from there I went to the plutonium 239 building, which was building 771, and that’s where we worked with plutonium 239.

Julie: How much time passed when you went…and also were those different levels of complexity every time? Or higher levels of exposure? Ken: The exposure from depleted uranium is much lower than enriched uranium and then plutonium is by far the most. The time that I spent in those other buildings was only about 4-5 months and then I went directly to the plutonium area. The plutonium area was the hot area at the time. We had a lot more exposure, a lot more alpha contamination, incidents and things of this nature. But it was pretty well controlled. At this time, there was less than 1,000 people on the plant so there wasn’t a lot of people. In fact, in building 71, which is a plutonium building, there were only 4 radiation monitors when we started. Later on, there was like 130, so it really changed over a period of time. Mainly to enhance the protection of the workers and also reduce the radiation and contamination as much as we could. Julie: So walk me through what your job actually was and how you were protecting the workers. Was it every day? Tell me what you did. Ken: Every day in the early days, the monitors in particular, were in respiratory equipment all the time. We would work with the chem. operators or the maintenance personnel and mainly control the contamination so it wouldn’t get out into the areas as much as we could. We’d also continuously monitor if it did get out. To help protect the workers, what we would do is continuously monitor for contamination. If any contamination started to get out, we would make sure that we could contain it as much as we possibly could and also make sure that everyone was in respiratory protection or proper clothing protection to protect them and the environment as much as we could. We would be taking air samples to monitor the air on a continuous basis. We’d also be monitoring with pee-wee or Ludlum instrumentation to look for the alpha contamination and make sure to look for the gamma, the beta and some of the other radiations that were there in the environment to protect the workers as much as we could while making sure there were limitations on how much time they could spend, etc. Julie: So if there was some contamination and it was airborne, what kind of measures were taken to eradicate that? Ken: A lot of times, if the contamination got out into the room, there was an inflow of air from the outside of the building to the offices, and the hallways to the room to the glove boxes. So, all of the airflow was always flowing inward. And the more inward we got, the more protection there was for the exhaust that went through those areas by filtration, etc. What we would always do is try and confine it to the closest area where there was the most filtration before it went any place else or into the environment. What we did if something did get out, we’d evacuate the people, contain the contamination as much as we could, go back in, decontaminate, get the area back to normal and then get back to normal working conditions. In the early days there were incidents about every day, mainly because we were learning. Everybody at the plant was learning. People can say what they want, but when you

deal with a new type of radioactive material—at that time nobody had ever dealt with it. When we first started working, we were really working by hand an awful lot, including with the nuclear weapons. There wasn’t the machining. We didn’t start machining any plutonium until 1957, mainly because of the pyrophoric aspects of plutonium. When we started machining plutonium we had more fires, but they were pretty much contained always within the glove box and within containers. So the fires were pretty well contained all the time. Julie: So when you say prior to machining, it was all by hand? It was still completely protected? Ken: Yes. Everything was done inside glove boxes generally speaking. But by hand, we would actually take some of the plutonium and hand finish it. It would be formed, shaped, and then hand finished to the actual shape, size that was needed and then go into a final weapon. There wasn’t any machining or precise machining until ’57, like I mentioned. So from ‘53, we were making parts by hand using some equipment, but a lot by hand. The operators on the fad line at that time was very small. As production increased, and particularly in ‘57, we added new buildings that involved a lot of foundry work, forming work, machining work and assembly. Julie: So at what point did you know what was happening, what you were building? Ken: When we started the only people that were allowed to go all over the plant site were security, fire department, Health Physics. That was in case there were any emergencies or things of this nature. We could put those people into the area where the emergency existed. But as far as the rest of the people, they basically stayed in that building. I didn’t have the foggiest idea of what was going on in the other buildings. When we started, there were two parking lots that were clear outside the plant. We walked in or took a bus to our buildings. Nobody knew what the other buildings were, what was happening or what was going on. The uranium was its own operation—enriched uranium, depleted uranium and then the plutonium—the same way. The secrecy kept us from going to various areas or knowing a lot about what else was happening. I didn’t really understand that we were building weapons or components for weapons probably until after 9 or 10 months after I started working there. Then I didn’t really have a good idea of what they were, how they were used or anything else. The secrecy that was put onto the plant site and the people…you just didn’t talk. I was a bus driver for a long time. I told my relatives and family. We didn’t talk about what we did at Rocky to family, we didn’t talk about it in the carpools. It was like during WWII, the old Uncle Sam deal: “hush up, don’t pass on any data to the enemy” or anything of this nature, and it worked quite well. But basically speaking, there was very little crosstalk outside the work. The families basically didn’t know what we were doing and other workers in carpools didn’t even know. Julie: So talk to me about the work you felt that you were doing, once you really started to understand the role.

Ken: I felt good the entire time, because of the military background and also just because of my background of going through the Depression, WWII and watching what the Hitler regime did and what the Japanese regime did, and what happened in Europe, etc. I didn’t want to see it in the U.S. I believe in a strong deterrent. Still do, always will. Nobody wants to use weapons of any kind of destruction. When you look at Hamburg, Germany and some of the towns in Europe—they were completely destroyed. Granted, it wasn’t by an atomic bomb, but it was by incendiaries. It was by regular weapons. As weapons enhance—and they’ve all been enhanced significantly—there can be more destruction. But I believe that in WWII, when we bombed Hiroshima, Nagasaki with the first two weapons—which were ‘Little Boy,’ and ‘Fat Man’—when we did it that stopped the war. I really believe that the Japanese wouldn’t have surrendered quite as easy as a lot of people think. We probably saved millions of lives by not only not destroying Japan, but also our own GIs. I also believe that without a good deterrent there’s always going to be somebody that wants what you have. To maintain the freedoms that we have, I believe we have to maintain that deterrent. Nobody likes it, nobody wants to use them. The best example: when I was called back to active duty, the next day was when Kennedy stopped Khrushchev in 1961 in the waters when he was building bases in Cuba, 90 miles off our shore. Kennedy had the deterrents to back him up to say “Khrushchev, stop or else.” The only thing that stopped Khrushchev I believe was the deterrent, and that stopped it. And in turn I believe we’ve had the Cold War. The Cold War went. It’s gone. We maintain overall basic peace throughout the world without the destruction of another WWII and I believe it’s strictly because of maintaining a deterrence. Julie: Well good, you brought up the Cold War, and that’s very much how we’re placing Rocky Flats’ story, in the backdrop of the Cold War. The Cold War had a huge impact on Colorado. Rocky Flats, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, NORAD, all the military bases here—it’s a huge economic engine. So talk to me a little bit about Colorado and the Cold War. Ken: The Cold War, from what I’ve seen when I was stationed at Lowry; and all that’s left of it now is two hangers and Wings Over the Rockies... But now Buckley has taken its place. NORAD took its place. All over the United States, not just Colorado, in the nuclear industry alone there were 14 sites built to put together the nuclear weapons that we have in the arsenal. This was all over. The economic boost in Colorado from Rocky Flats alone…for every worker that worked out there, there were 7 that were supporting it in the Denver area. By that I mean, supplies, materials and all that were needed to support Rocky Flats. Also there were 8,700 people out there at the site and 2,200 construction workers. We always had a construction force of about 2,000 people continuously all the time that we were out there. It was S&W or Lumus. It was a big economic boost to Denver. And one of the best things you can compare it with: Rocky Flats paid very well. Many of the federal agencies paid well. That economic into Denver was a big boost. The other thing is that when it was shut down, it was a negative boost. Mainly due to the fact that all

the people that left out there and went working, a lot of them ended up at Lowe’s and Wal-Mart. Nothing against that, but the wages were completely different. When they shut that down, not only was 7 for every one worker that was out there was suffering, but all the people out there as well because their wages changed to less than in half. That not only effected Rocky Flats, but all of Colorado. The same thing’s happening with some of the bases. When we lost Lowry, that was a big impact on Denver, so whatever federal agencies we let into any state helps boost the economy and supports all the work that goes into that facility. Julie: So tell me what year you stopped working at Rocky Flats. And then—were you at the same department the whole time? Ken: I was mainly in Health Physics, which is mainly to help the workers and protect the environment, for 25 years. In 1975, I went and became production manager at a new nuclear facility called Buildings 371 and 374. That was completed in 1980. I then went into facility construction and plant services which was just another group. I then went from there to building a new non-nuclear facility, for building mainly stainless steel parts and etc. We built that facility 37% under budget and two years ahead of schedule, which was excellent not only for Rocky Flats, but excellent for the government as a new way of construction. It was called Building 460. After that I basically went into all facility projects at Rocky Flats. DOE turned over all projects to the contractor and managed those. After that I went into maintenance, plant services and utilities with about 16- to 18-hundred people. I managed that until the day I retired in ‘91. I retired for 11 days, and DOE contacted me right away and wanted myself and two other people to go to all the nuclear sites and pass on to them an evaluation of what it took to operate Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats at that time was operating where DOE wanted it. We had reduced the radiation levels to workers from 12,000 mR down to 500 mR on design, which is a drastic reduction. This was over the years, but it came at the very end. But the way the Rocky Flats was operating their safety, their exposures to personnel and the way they did business, they wanted passed on. They picked myself as the project manager, a Health Physics man, another Health Physics man and then a man from engineering from the Department of Energy, and the three of us spent the next 15 years or more. To this date we’re still doing it; to go out to all the other sites to recommend what improvements they needed to meet the same requirements at Rocky Flats. Julie: So tell me about plutonium… Ken: Plutonium? A little bit about plutonium, is when we first dealt with plutonium we could measure the alpha, we could measure the gamma, and we could measure some of the beta that came off. We couldn’t measure the neutron. We couldn’t come up with a neutron measuring instrument until about ‘57. The film badges with plutonium emits a lot of alpha. It’s got a 24,000 year half-life—it’s got a 5.15 MIV energy in the alpha, but in turn, we could only measure the alpha and the gamma basically speaking. A lot of the gamma comes from americium 241, which is an

impurity in the plutonium. It’s also used in heat detectors like in all your smoke detectors in buildings and etc. What we would do in reprocessing it is get rid of some of that to reduce the gamma. But the big thing with plutonium that we had was it was very pyrophoric. It was very soft metal, very hard to work with, but in turn the main thing is we couldn’t measure the neutron until ‘57. We had film badges that we used for the workers that measured the beta gamma, and we measured the alpha by air sampling, smearing and things of this nature. Didn’t know what the people were exposed to mainly by the air sampling in the areas. Later with the plutonium material, we did learn how to measure the neutrons. We then included in the TLDs—we called them thermoluminescent dosimeters, the film badges that we used—we could measure the neutrons as well. Neutrons became a big problem. You heard of the Benelux we used that was part of the fire problem. You heard maybe that we had to shield the workers with water or some hydrogenous substance to slow down the neutrons and minimize the amount of neutron radiation that the workers get. What we did, is we then start shielding. Imagine we went from 12,000 mR to 500 in the long run. There’s still a 5,000 limit by the federal government, but the workers at Rocky Flats were later limited first to 5 R then to 1 R then to 500. This was primarily done by shielding. We shielded boxes with two to six inches of Benelux. Reduced the radiation to the workers tremendously. We had a problem with that in the fires, so then we went to using more water, gelled water and things of that nature, contained within two pieces of stainless steel. Generally speaking, 11-gauge stainless steel, so all the shielding was later contained inside the glove box container instead of outside and it eliminated fire hazard. It also provided better protection for the workers, and it’s easier to work in the glove boxes. When you’re dealing with working through two to four to six inches of shielding with your arms, it makes it very difficult to work. And lead shielding. We used the lead shielding primarily to get out the 60 keV gamma when they came from the americium 241. Plutonium is a brand new metal. We got a lot of it now, out in the field. We still have to look forward to what we’re going to do with all those old weapons and reprocess the plutonium that’s in those and wherever else the plutonium is. In fact, part of my last years at Rocky were to put in processing systems that would take all the plutonium which were the residues and things of this nature, and put them into some form where we could get rid of the plutonium at Rocky Flats and in turn clean up the plant, decontaminate it and put the plutonium someplace else. Julie: Where? Ken: That’s a good question. The plutonium at Rocky Flats was primarily the residue plutonium at Rocky Flats. It was contamination that was in the systems, in the residues like oxides or chips or things of this nature or liquids. Over the period from 1990 to 2005 all of that material was reprocessed through the chemical processes and then shipped to other sites in the United States. We had most of the plutonium at Rocky Flats stored in building 371 which was in a remote storage area, encased in two feet of concrete. It was 360 feet long, 22 feet wide and 42 feet high. Completely remotely operated away from the operators with nine in and out stations and it worked very well. Where all that plutonium is today, I’m not exactly

sure. I know where a lot of it is and I’d rather not say, but right now we also have a large storage of weapons that were used, but then because of new delivery systems and etc., we had to make new ones, and a lot of them are now just in storage where they are not being used and that material will have to be processed. We are looking at new facilities, some at Los Alamos, some at other sites to process some of this and also maintain the capability of making new nuclear weapons on a very limited scale, to keep up with the new integrated delivery systems. For example, when you go from a B29 to a B2, the delivery systems are completely different and the weapons in turn are different. Right now there’s a lot of plutonium still sitting out there in storage areas. Julie: So because of your work around the country you have a pretty good sense of things. If money was no object and you were the president, how would you personally fix it? What would you do with all this waste? Ken: I’d make new processing areas, new facilities. Primarily one major new facility to reprocess all of the old material that is stored and some of the weapons because there’s also another problem. As plutonium gets older, it produces more and more of americium 241 which produces a lot more gamma. It’s a low-energy gamma, but it’s a problem. I’d like to take all the old weapons as an example, clean them, take the material out of them, put the material in a safe configuration where there is an oxide or a metal, and store it in some place, and if we ever need to use it we can use it. It can be used for other purposes that they’re looking at. As an example, right now, we have the problem of the reactors—we have the fuel rods that are coming out of the reactors. Where are the fuel rods going? We were stopped from putting the fuel rods in Yucca Mountain in Nevada because they shut down Yucca Mountain because of possible environmental problems. The fuel rods are being taken out of the reactors. Where are they going? Platteville might be a good example. A few rods, to my knowledge, are still stored at Platteville. Yucca Mountain was a much better choice. There’s got to be better agreements between the environmentalists, the people that don’t like nuclear at all, how we handle it and what we do with it. All the people that worked at Rocky Flats felt safe. You can talk to any of the old ones and 99% of them felt that it was a safe place to work. I worked there forever. Most of the members of my family worked there. Our friends, relatives: we were family out there. We worked as safe as we could, protected the environment as much as we could, and as of now all funds have been shut off for nuclear. That’s like cutting out the military. I still feel like we need a good deterrent to protect our country and the freedoms that we have. Maybe that’s on the side that’s not agreeable with everyone, but I really feel that way and I feel that way from age, experience and knowledge that I’ve gained over the many years, and I feel like we can pass that on to some of the younger generations. That there isn’t always going to be a fella that you can say, “shake your hand with peace.” There’s a young man in Korea that I don’t really know how to trust. Putin right now is doing a lot of things in Ukraine and more or less calling our bluff. I like something to back up the bluff, and the best way to do that is to maintain good deterrents. And the people that worked out there, Jack Weaver, who’s going to be on this later, and us, put together a plaque with an organization

that’s near here. It basically states that the plaque is dedicated to the men and women that worked at Rocky Flats and their families to maintain the deterrents that ended the Cold War and still maintains the deterrents to maintain the freedom of the people of the United States, and I really feel that way. It was the people that did that. It wasn’t just military. During WWII my mom worked in a factory building airplanes on a dirt floor. The women came to light, and without the complete production that we had of airplanes, tanks, and etc., and the way it went, we wouldn’t have won WWII. We still have the same thing that we need to maintain, that deterrent to keep it going. Julie: Tell me about some of the employees that did get sick. Was it only the ones working in glove boxes? Ken: Well basically, I’ll start with myself. I was working out there as I mentioned for many, many years and went from there to all the other sites. I worked with every radioactive material that we had at Rocky Flats. Not only plutonium, uranium, but curium, neptunium, uranium 233 and a lot of other materials as well. In turn, all of us were exposed to some degree but basically we all stayed within the limits. Some of us did receive a little more plutonium, primarily from the early days because we didn’t have the protection or the knowledge. We started out with respirators that were just one pad and that was it. We went out and did work all over with that one pad. We later went with kumpfuls, they called them, which was a better pad. We later went with supplied air and other ways to protect the workers. But all the original workers got some type of exposure. I personally lost a big part of my right lung and left lung from cancer primarily, not just from plutonium but primarily from asbestos. Any chemical plant you go to, you’re going to run into that. Or any place in the United States you’re going to run into asbestos. Also, the chemicals. We worked with every kind of chemical you can imagine: trichlor, perchlor, HCl. Every kind of chemical you can imagine. A lot of acids. And in turn, I honestly feel that if you go back in the records—and I’ve been working with Dr. Cecilia Rose on exposures and we’ve been working with NIOSH with what happened to the people—and generally speaking, most of the people that actually ended up with cancer and things of this nature, I don’t believe were mainly from plutonium. I honestly believe that primarily it was from other things in a normal chemical plant that happened. And that includes myself. The exposures to the people, generally speaking—there were very few people that ended up with body burdens, if you want to call it that, of plutonium, and you’ll be talking to two of them, that’s Jack and I. But primarily, the body exposures I don’t believe caused the major problems with health at Rocky Flats. I honestly believe it was all the chemicals we worked with, some from the radioactive materials, but generally speaking, if you look at the number of cancers from Rocky Flats versus the number of cancers elsewhere, I think you’ll find it’s pretty equal. You hear more about it; you hear more about the cancers. But I’ve luckily, now, I’ve had both parts of my lungs removed and I ended up okay; I’m 82 years of age. A lot of the people that got sick I think are from working like at Sunstrand, the Arsenal. Sunstrand was primarily trichlor, perchlor. The Arsenal was all kinds of chemicals. All of your old factories—you go all over the state of Colorado, or all over the United

States—we have problems with all the industrial plants because as years go by, we learn more and more. With radioactivity, it’s the same way. We learn more, and more and more. If you look at the workers, and I don’t want to minimize it—because there were some workers that received more radiation than they maybe should have. But very few, number 1…and we did the best job we could. There were a lot of questions about exposures to people, not only at Rocky, but in Denver. And if you notice from the fires, recently even, there were air samples being taken from 27 locations around Rocky Flats all the time. Right after the worst fire that we had, there’s a picture of a lot of the dignitaries from the Denver and the government area in Colorado on the state buildings downtown where there was no radioactivity shown from all the air sampling. And to the best of my knowledge, there were very little radioactive materials released in the Denver area or the state of Colorado from the two fires that we had, and I can go into a lot more detail on that as to why it could’ve been worse than what it was. Thanks to the fireman and the other people that put it out, they got some exposures but it was minimized. One of the best examples is the ‘69 fire. We had a major fire, not only in the foundry area, but it went through more of building 76, machining, and it almost got to the assembly areas. There was damage, serious damage to the building. What saved us, was the HVAC systems—our ventilation systems, kept operating. They did not fail. There was one release on top of building 76. The contamination was released from that area, mainly deposited between 78 building and 76 building, and was distributed on people going in and out of the building also, to fight the fire. There was contamination spread outside the building, but if you look at the air samples taken all over elsewhere, the filters did not get destroyed. There was only one area where the filters got damaged slightly and that was in a booster system in the area that I just mentioned. All the rest of the filters remained intact. All of the HEPA filters maintained and did their job. In the ‘57 fires, we lucked out the same way. And I’ll say lucked out. Because at that time we only had one stage of HEPA filters, which there were 982 HEPA filters in the main plenum, which took room air basically and they burned, and in turn there was an explosion in the building from hydrogen that generated from plexiglasses and etc. in the building. But the booster plenums—most of their contamination was contained because it was from inside the glove box lines—did not catch fire, and was maintained. So the contamination that went outside supposedly…I didn’t see a lot of contamination. In fact, a few of us climbed into the stack after the fire. I climbed into the stack within a week after through the ductwork. I dropped three and a half feet down into the bottom of the stack from the ductwork, took radioactive readings and samples from some of the debris that was in there, sand and etc. The highest reading I got was 2,500 counts per minute, with a pee-wee instrument in those days. And in turn, it surprised me that there was very little contamination in the stack. As far as outside again, there was contamination in the immediate area outside from people going in and out to fight the fires. But as far as the air samples, I personally took high vol. samples, which is a lot of air through a filter paper that you can determine how much contamination is in the air, and I personally did not see any high air samples in the environment outside, or in the 26 samples that were located offsite.

Julie: So finishing up with the earlier question about the employees that did get sick, did they get compensated, or did the DOD, or whatever corporation was owning it at the time, cover their medical expenses? Because I understand that a lot of the employees didn’t get compensated, or they’re not getting compensated today. Do you know anything about that? Ken: In reference to compensation to employees, many, many employees, including myself—I got $150,000 from the Department of Energy or Department of Labor. They looked at all the employees, and are still looking at all the employees. And in fact, there’s been a new requirement put out now where you don’t need just the dose. If you worked at Rocky Flats and didn’t receive large doses, or doses that were maybe questionable, that you in turn are still eligible for some help from NIOSH and from the Department of Labor. I know many, many people, and I’ve helped many, many people through the Department of Energy, through the Department of Labor, through Jewish Hospital, and Colorado General and all the medical records of the people. Everybody that I’ve worked with that did have any exposure or any ills related to Rocky Flats—and I’ve worked with many—have received some compensation. There’re still a lot of people working towards giving more of the people compensation. There’re a lot of questions that I mentioned earlier. What gives you the sickness, or the ills, and where did it come from? Most of the doses of radiation and contamination were very well looked at by Roger Falk, Clayton Lagerquist; a lot of Health Physics people from Rocky Flats—Ed Putzier. And in turn they did the best job they could, and reconstructed all the doses the best they could. There’s still some questions because we’re looking back now over 50 years, and your records 50 years ago aren’t near as good as they are today, and in turn, what are the medical effects of radiation or contamination? We’ve reduced. Remember the old foot monitors we used for x-raying machines that were used to see if our shoes are big enough? All of the radiation that we used from x-rays and cat scans and on and on: how much damage does it do to the human body? And there’s still a lot of questions in reference to that. The people, to the best of my knowledge, they’re still looking at all of the people. They have given more, and more compensation. You can get anywhere from $150,000 to $400,000 depending on what the actual problem was, and so on and so forth. But the medical—they basically still pay for my medical and any cancer related deals. I also luckily have military medical and other medical, so I’m well taken care of. But generally speaking, to my knowledge with people that worked at Rocky Flats, the people that are on NIOSH, the people that are at Jewish Hospital, and Colorado General and the other hospitals also furnishing data: they’re still doing the best they can for the people that actually got illnesses from the plutonium, the uranium, or even now the chemicals. Asbestos was a biggie. Generally speaking, anybody to my knowledge that got cancer was going to be compensated if they haven’t been, and there’s a lot of them being compensated now. Julie: Good. Talk to me about the Grand Jury. Ken: I don’t know much about the FBI raid. At the time of the FBI raid I was in charge of like, I say, 1,600 people, mainly maintenance, plant services, utilities and

etc. all over the plant site. The FBI came in. We heard they came in. I personally wasn’t interviewed. I heard it was because of the incinerator still operating during the winter months and also some hotspots they found from a plane flying over. My personal knowledge that I’ve heard is primarily from working with the other workers that worked in the building and etc. I was not in building 71 at the time. I was located at that time in building 334 and some other office buildings. To my knowledge and from everything I’ve learned, the incinerator was not operating. The hot spot was either from the smoke stack coming out of the building, which would be like room air coming out of here which was hotter than the outside environmental air, and also from steam cleaning that was happening inside the lines inside the building. I honestly believe that the main reason Rocky Flats closed was not because of the FBI raid, or the things they found during the FBI raid, it was primarily because of the ending of the Cold War between us and Russia primarily, and in turn the need for additional weapons. There was one weapon system completely cancelled about that same time and Rocky Flats was shut down because the Cold War ended and we didn’t have the need for the nuclear weapons that we previously had. Julie: Will you talk to me about the encirclement and the protests—the anti-nuke protests? Tell me about some of that stuff. Ken: The protests, the ones that the people really seen in the general area started in the ‘80s primarily. They started a little earlier…there were some sisters that were at the road outside of Rocky Flats and there was some minor things that happened, like when they put the tee-pee up on the railroad tracks. Surprisingly enough, most of the people that worked at Rocky Flats never really paid too much attention to it. They didn’t see much of it, and in all honesty, they weren’t stopping a thing because we weren’t shipping weapons out by rail anymore or anything else. We were shipping it out by truck so when they put the tee-pee on the railroad tracks thinking they stopped the sending out of nuclear weapons or parts, it was going out by truck instead of by rail at that time. The protests that I seen were primarily a few people at entrances once in a while, and then you’d hear a lot about it on the news. You couldn’t talk to the protesters because the company really preferred that you didn’t talk to them and get into an argument. Most of us did not, including myself. I felt they were wrong. I felt that if you’re going to do something—like the old Kennedy saying: “Don’t ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” I didn’t see the protesters doing much for my country. I’ve seen the workers at Rocky Flats being protested against, and all the other workers and the military throughout the world were doing something to maintain those deterrents, or provide for our freedom or things of that nature. I didn’t see the protestors doing a lot except standing around with a bunch of signs and things of this nature. There were also protests in favor of. We had a Boots Randall get together at the Flats of about 15 or 20,000 people that was pro. There was very little stated on that. There was a lot of pro too, but you always find since WWII that the people who were involved in wars, the people that are pro, they don’t talk about it. How many people have you talked to that were in WWII or even Korea? Some of them talk about what

their experiences were in the war. They did their job, they provided what was necessary at the time, they were done and they went back to their civilian job. I believe that’s what most of us should do, to provide what’s necessary to help the country, help your family, and help your fellow American. You don’t do that by protesting. We have the right to protest—I have the right to free speech, but I found in talking to a lot of the protesters, you didn’t get any place, and in turn I didn’t really see where they were going except peace. Peace is great, but one way of maintaining peace is still having a good deterrent. Julie: Do you think the site, the former site, is cleaned up today? Like, do you feel that it’s environmentally safe and it’s not polluted anymore? Ken: In reference to the site as it stands today, and even a little bit before, we had an incident where most of the contaminations that are discussed in today’s court suits and things of that nature were from the 903 pad where we actually stored trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene that was contaminated with plutonium that was used as a coolant for machining plutonium. We planned on having a process to process those solutions, but it didn’t work, and the United States was given the chance stop production of nuclear weapons or store it until you find something to do with it. The decision was made to store it and keep production going. During the storage at 903 pad there was leakage out of the barrels in turn the barrels did leak into the soil on the 903 pad. Later, to make a long story short, all those barrels were removed, all the solution was removed. The dirt was dug up in that immediate area and in turn it was covered in asphalt. There were sample ports put down into the ground around that area to see if there was any distribution of that. But during the storage of that there was some wind that distributed some contamination a little bit in the eastern direction of the plant. How do I feel about the plant and the contamination today? There’s 1,300 acres set aside for DOE to manage and keep managing and monitor on a continuous basis. I’m working with DOE and I see what they’re doing to monitor all of the water, all of the soil, all the vegetation, the air from that area today. What was actually done was all the buildings and all the contamination on the surface was removed for seven billion dollars. They also went down four to six feet below the surface. Deeper than that what they basically did is scarfed; they cleaned up and scarfed any of the concrete or anything that was under there. Scarfed it until it was reading almost nil contamination. Julie: What does scarfing mean? Ken: You would grit blast. A good example, you see them grit blasting a concrete wall. It takes off a portion of that wall where the contamination might have been embedded to. I’ll take building 371 which was one of the deepest. There was 42 feet below ground and to the best of my knowledge there is still some remaining underground that was scarfed, cleaned up to the best of their ability and in turn, cleaned up the contamination the best they could and that material is still left there below a certain depth. All the rest is removed and sent offsite primarily to Idaho or

Hanford, and some to Carlsbad. The contamination that’s onsite now on the surface is almost nil. That contamination, that little bit that’s left underground, if there is, I personally did not monitor it. I personally did not see the readings that were taken on it, so I can’t really say. But to the best of my knowledge they cleaned it up the best they could and in turn covered it, then sealed it, and scarfed it as I mentioned to clean it up, and that still remains there. That’s why Scott from the Department of Energy has a group of anywhere from 20 to 27 people that continually monitor that site for all of the things that I’ve mentioned previously for air, water, soil, vegetation and etc. They’re working on a subcommittee that is overseeing that, which I am also a member of. We see no contamination leaving that site at the present time. There was a question just recently about some uranium that might have left, and what it was was naturally occurring uranium. What we can do now with isotopic handlers, we can tell by the energy that is released from what we see on the alphas of whether it’s uranium natural, uranium depleted, uranium 235 or whatever it is, and it was natural uranium. It came from the flooding that we recently went through. But basically, the Department of Energy to my knowledge is doing a good job of maintaining what little contamination is left on that site and keeping it there. If you look at all the other sites, which there are many throughout Colorado and throughout the United States, it’s going to take a long time and it’s going to take a lot of money. Clear back to WWII, you look at the arsenal that was mentioned previously, that was WWII, and in turn there’s still a lot of contamination out there. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time. And I don’t say from errors that we’ve had before, but it was from technological knowledge… And something I’d like to mention now before I forget: Rocky Flats was passed on and was never given any credit for scientific advancements in all kinds of technology. There were at least 500 people out there always working for advancement in technologies. For not only protecting the people better from the radioactive materials, but how to work with all materials, whether it be welding, or machining or anything else. We machined materials to the nth degree where it had never been done before. And in turn, if you look at all the technology advancements that were made because of Rocky Flats and the other nuclear facilities, the same as we’re doing in space, it’s enhanced our lives tremendously and my grandkids and my great grandkids will benefit from these advances. And it’s never mentioned, you know. It’s only the bad things you hear. Julie: So one thing that confuses me, and I’m not a military employee, I’m just a normal citizen. Why is the Department of Energy, formerly Department of Defense, why are they managing the land and not the EPA? It doesn’t make sense to me. Ken: The original was the AEC when we started, the Atomic Energy Commission. It was turned over to the Atomic Energy Commission rather than the military because when that weapon came out, that amount of force, they wanted some oversight in addition to the military. The Atomic Energy was then started, the Manhattan Project was started about the same time, and all the other sites were put together. And in turn they were basically controlled under the Atomic Energy Commission. The Atomic Energy Commission later changed to the Department of Energy which is the DOE that we know of today. The DOE today has the funding to follow up with the

sites they were in charge of before. From day one, when I was out there under the Department of Energy or the AEC, we worked with the Colorado State Health Department. We started the Health Physics Society in the state of Colorado together. There were all these joint efforts continuously, with also the colleges and things of this nature, so we didn’t disagree. Colorado State was doing it, EPA was doing it, and are still doing it. Everybody else monitors; it isn’t just the Department of Energy. It’s the EPA, it’s also the Colorado State Department. It’s site on site on site, I mean, there’re other people looking at what was done and what is being done. And from what I see being done, the DOE, for follow up, is still doing their job and it is being looked at by the other agencies. There’re an awful lot of government agencies and an awful lot of red tape that I’d like to see omitted as much as we could. But as long as we have government and as big as our government is there will be agencies overlooking other agencies. I feel they’re still doing a good job. What Scott is doing out there, what the Colorado State Department is doing out there, what other groups are doing out there; just looking; are doing the job well. And we, I feel, in all honesty, did the job well. Particularly when we were looked at by the Department of Energy and by the Colorado State, to send people to all the other sites and bring them up to snuff like Rocky Flats was, basically. Julie: So talk about some of the controversy that still exists today, and why do you think it’s still around? Ken: The controversy that exists today is people that I don’t think have the technical knowledge or the truth. Recently there was a book written as you know by Iverson that said, to the best of my knowledge anyway, she was next to eight tons of plutonium. That type of book sells. The books that are written that actually provide what was actually happening out there, most of the time, because of the secrecy, we never did it. I’ve never produced a book. Most of the people that are around… There’s a good document by Ed Putzier who was the head of Health Physics out there for a long time that really states, “What is plutonium? What is uranium? What was spread? What was in the environment? What are the requirements for getting 100% of, what you want to call, for what a person could receive, and etc.?” Most of the protesters, when you actually talked to them, don’t have the technical knowledge or the real knowledge. The people that worked out there have the knowledge of what was done. You don’t see them arguing with the protesters, you don’t see them discussing it. I’ve tried several times. Through the museum that we’re trying to start, we’ve had booths down in Denver. People come up and because of lack of knowledge, they’ll say, “You’re contaminating all of Denver, you cause deaths all over, you cause cancer all over.” Two ladies came up to me and started giving me all kinds of hell because I was one of the ones involved in the military during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and in turn making nuclear weapons. They said we should have apologized and helped Japan because they didn’t really understand why we had some of the ships and stuff in Pearl Harbor. Well, it’s hard for a military guy to understand why we should go and apologize right away and help them after they bombed us in Pearl Harbor and started the war. The protesters, generally speaking, some of them do their of homework. They do a lot of homework.

And in turn, then they publicize it. But who really follows through and sees if that’s correct? When they had the tee-pee on the railroad tracks, what data did they have to say that? They didn’t even know that we weren’t using the railroad anymore. What about the data that they keep saying we’ve exposed the people—we exposed all of Denver, we could have contaminated all of Denver, and etc.? I don’t see them having the knowledge or true facts. I worked out there in the nuclear industry for 50 years. I worked day to day with the people that worked there to build the deterrents and etc. I’ve been to all the other sites many, many times. The people did their job the same way they did their job in all areas. I don’t care if it was the medical people in the Denver area, they’re making tremendous advances in the medical industry that have really saved my life probably, and in turn they are doing a heckuva job. There might be people who are saying, “You’re putting chemicals into these people,” whether it be chemo or radiation for cancers. You don’t hear nothing about them putting chemicals into the body too much, but we’re doing it for the benefit of the people. I feel we’ve made the deterrents for the benefit of the people. The protestors, I feel, going back to that old Kennedy saying—I may come from the old school—but I still feel if you’re going to do something, do it for something better. Don’t do it just to complain about something. Do it for something better. If you got a better way of doing it, if you can clean it up better, whatever you can do. I’d like to tell all the people who are protesting or complaining: help with the forest fires, help us with the floods. I just personally got flooded out completely. There’re a lot of people that instead of protesting against doing something, let’s put them to work and have them do something good for the country. Julie: Very good. What do you think the legacy of Rocky Flats is? Ken: The legacy? I think the legacy of not only Rocky Flats, but also all of the nuclear plants that were put together to produce the deterrent that we did, is going to be the end of the Cold War. Without Rocky Flats, I don’t believe the Cold War would have ended. I believe it would have gone into something much larger, because when you had people like Khrushchev challenging Kennedy, or when you start putting the Korean individual in right now, or Iran or any of them, when you have people like that in the world, because of religious differences, because of political differences or because of freedom differences, there’s always going to be somebody that wants what we have. I don’t know of an empire that ever really wasn’t put down. Going back to the Moors, the Romans, the Spain, England, and France, all of them. They all went down sooner or later. I believe they mainly went down because the people lived a good life, they loved it, they quit providing the deterrents or the military that was necessary, and in turn they just didn’t want to work hard to maintain it. They started living the good life, and then someone took them over. That happens as far back as I can remember. I think the legacy of Rocky Flats, primarily, is with those deterrents we ended the Cold War. We provided the necessary materials to the military and to the President of the United States to stop the Cold War. Like Reagan did with the wall: “Take down this damn wall, Khrushchev,” you know, and he took it down. It was knocked down in fact. I went to that area where it was knocked down and the people wanted it, but somebody had to have the background and the force, if

you want to call it that, because it’s like: If you make a threat to me—If I know you’re not going to carry out that threat, or find out that you don’t have the capability to do anything, I’m going to take advantage. I think almost anybody does. I want that advantage on my side right now. I still feel like we still live in the best country in the world, and I like to see that democracy and that freedom passed to the rest of the world where we can all get along. When you visit other people, we all get along. I’ve been all over the world. I can go to Germany, I can go any place, and you get along with the people. But the legacy of Rocky Flats I think is, primarily, that we were a big part of what ended the Cold War and maintained the peace that we have. Julie: So the weapons aren’t being built in Colorado anymore. Is it public knowledge where the nukes are being built now? Ken: I just recently worked on a facility down at Los Alamos. It was cancelled. It was called the CMR building, and in turn it was also improvements to what they call TA 55 building. I won’t go into details, but it was a very large facility and it was also to upgrade us to where we had the capability to maintain our nuclear arsenal, to keep up with the new delivery systems that we’ll put in and are putting in, and also to have the chemical research and development to be able to do what we’re going to do with old materials and also to recycle and do different things. We even looked into doing that at Rocky Flats, but we were shut down completely. I think a lot of Rocky Flats could have been maintained and the best example of that was made in 460 building. It was the most up to date stainless steel facility you could ever ask for. There were deals looked at between other people and the state of Colorado to maintain some of that. But because of the environmental problems, the protesting problems and the government political problems, all of Rocky Flats was shut down. I believe the next facility will probably be Oak Ridge or Los Alamos—one of the old facilities. Some of the other 14 have already been shut down and cleaned up. A lot of the old facilities at Los Alamos have been cleaned up, and in turn, if there’s going to be any new one they’re looking into doing some renovations at some of the sites to help us be able to have the capability of providing the advancements in nuclear technology, the weapons and keeping up with our delivery systems. Right now I don’t see anything progressing very well on that. I also see other countries now producing carriers with nukes on board, and aircrafts on board that can carry nukes. That’s never happened before. Countries that have a navy; a lot of them have nuclear capability and deterrents on air craft carriers, submarines and they’re eliminating more and more of the missile sites, which is common knowledge in the papers every day. I don’t want another Cold War. Somebody needs to lead the world in how we maintain peace or eliminate the Cold Wars and I think that is still going to be done by some deterrent. Otherwise, some other country, and I could name them I guess…but that’d be my idea. And I just don’t want to see that for my grandkids, if nothing else. Julie: Is there anything else that we haven’t talked about that you think is important to mention or put out there?

Ken: I think a lot of people looked at Rocky as people going to work, and just knowing that they were producing some type of weapon that was death-defying and was going to eliminate the population of the entire world and things of this nature. A lot of the weapons were produced for peaceful purposes also. Right now at Parachute we used one for fracking in oil fields. I personally was involved in the developing of a weapon that was going to be used for making a new Panama Canal. A lot of the weapons are made for deterring any weapons coming in, so we can eliminate them before they hit us. Right now they’re looking at lasers, as you know, and you’ve seen the lasers distributed when Korea was putting out, and some of the weapons that were put out when Korea was doing some of that. I think what I’d like to say in the end, probably, is that the people out there were family. They were regular people from all over: Louisville, Lafayette, Thornton, Boulder, Arvada and Westminster. All over. They were your neighbors, they were just general people that were doing their job. They weren’t bad guys. They weren’t any people that should have been called “baby killers” or anything else when you come back from war. They weren’t any people that should have been downgraded or protested against in such a way that they’re more or less bad or dirt. They were doing their job. Lucky for the protestors and all the other people they were doing their job and gave them the right to protest and continue to protest. We have that right in the United States and I respect that, but I believe it can be done in a more reasonable way and there’s other ways they can add to helping instead of protesting. As far as the people working out there, I worked as long as anybody in the industry down there, and in turn we were family. We didn’t talk about what we did, we didn’t brag about what we did, we didn’t ask for anything in particular; it was a good place to work, it was safe and in turn, to my knowledge, most of the people have been pretty well taken care of. I’ll catch some heck for that because some of the people weren’t, and they’re still doing what they can to make sure everybody was or is going to be protected and helped along with their medical problems or anything else. I think you’re going to find more and more of that in any industry. You’re going to see more and more complaints and suits against all industry for chemicals and other things. I just want to thank the people that worked out there. They did their job didn’t ask for a hell of a lot and they, to the best of my knowledge, ended the Cold War. Julie: What’s your best guess on how many triggers were created during the time Rocky Flats was in operation? Just give us an idea of the volume? And: In a brief summary, what was Rocky Flats? Ken: The first question, how many weapons did we produce or components for weapons did we produce? We produced approximately a total in the nuclear arsenal: 70,000 weapons from all the plants together with final assembly in Pantex. As far as how many exist today? I don’t know the exact number, but I know what they’re shooting for in Washington. They’re shooting for a number for something like 2,700 being active and in the field but I don’t know the exact number. You can hear all kinds of different numbers, but when we started Rocky Flats we were only producing very little weapons, because as I mentioned, it wasn’t a production. We

were doing one-of-a-kind: maybe one every day or one every other day. Later we were producing quite a few, and the reason being because as the Cold War got hotter—you can look over a period of time and there’s a chart that shows from 1953 how many we produced on a continuous basis, to a peak, and then how we went down. And by the time in ‘89, we were way down, and the reason being: as I said, the end of the Cold War, and we didn’t need them anymore. As far as the overall Rocky Flats site, and you mentioned the legacy earlier, it was a city within a city. We had medical, we had fire department, we had security, we had the same services as all of your counties and cities had for disposal for normal waste; we recycled all of our liquids and processed them so they were cold going out. It was a city. A city of members—men and women—that lived in all of the cities around it, didn’t want to hurt any of the people around it because that’s where our kids lived, and our kids also worked out there. It was a city, and we were given a job to do. We did the job. I don’t think that we asked for a hell of a lot afterwards, and in turn the people that were hurt, I hope the government does continue to take care of them, and I think they will. I still have a lot of faith in our government. We the people are still the government, we just have to change the things we don’t like. The best way we can do that isn’t by protesting, it’s by voting and doing what we should do, getting active. Other than that, the city was family to me. My whole life was family out there because we couldn’t talk about what the heck we did to anybody; our family or our relatives. We did bowling, we did tennis, we did golf, and we did all our activities together. We had baseball teams, soccer teams; we had picnics all the time; we had safety dinners and anniversaries all the time. It was family, and I like to remember it that way. A good example is this young woman, who isn’t real young anymore, but Ellen, was the first craftswoman out there. There were a lot of questions like, “Why didn’t we have more women out at the beginning?”, but it was because the facilities weren’t available. Now when we ended up there was probably as many women as men, but we were family.