Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats

A Child's Rude AwakeningDr. Kristen Iversen's "Full Body Burden-Growing Up in the Shadow of Rocky Flats", shows what it was like to live near a nuclear weapons facility; not an electrical power plant but a reckless, careless, unsafe, hazardous nuclear weapons plant within 16 miles of Denver that made 70,000 plutonium pits for nuclear tests for 37 years during the Cold War without much public knowledge.Having grown up next to the plant and later working there, she researched the material for 10 years drawing on interviews of dedicated employees who were the "Cold Warriors"; the community of families who moved to the area who enjoyed the bigger homes, scenery, a chance to have own wells, some livestock, gardens- children and adults who later became ill and/or developed various types of cancer; protesters who were arrested; people directly involved in the history of Rocky Flats, and even today still keep an eye on whether part of the site will be opened to the public for recreational purposes, new roads built or new subdivisions built. She interweaves the events of her family with the events of Rocky Flats beautifully with elements of secrecy, denial and loyalty in each.Readers who grew up near the plant will relate to many parts and be spurred on to ask questions and expect answers. We were unaware of actual accidents like the Rocky Flats 1957 and 1969 fires with plumes spreading over suburbs and into eastern plains; the incinerator, which burned plutonium contaminated waste; the leaking barrels of waste left outside in extreme temperatures and weather; the two rivers that flowed under the negligent facility into two drinking water reservoirs. Imagine plutonium waste being shipped in railroad boxcars all over the western states and being at a loss as to where to dump it!Dr. Iversen rode horses around one lake and swam in it. The reader "gets to ride her horse!"It was an era of kids playing outside.Many didn't know about it and will recall some personal connection. We knew of rumors.My Japanese husband stayed in the home of a friend of mine whose father worked there.A 4th grade teacher told my class that "the Soviets have a missile pointed right at your back yard." We talked about deformed animals or weird fish in the lakes. (This was BEFORE Homer Simpson made his debut!)For readers who did not grow up there, she illustrates the secrecy of the COLD WAR era we have been so eager to put behind us. We cannot relegate nuclear waste and nuclear disasters to history books on a forgotten shelf.They live on for tens or hundreds of thousands of years in our environment, our bodies, our descendants whether they were near uranium mines, weapons plants, power plants, or nuclear tests sites or waste sites world-wide.Dr. Iversen brings it home to our dining table to discuss. What did or what do/can we eat and drink? What is safe and acceptable? Somewhere there are children, like Kristen, running freely outside, happily, until one day, a disaster happens and we once again wake up and reach for a book, information, or an expert opinion to make the nightmare go away. Closing our eyes helps, but we will be forced to wake up again.We were awakened again on March 11, 2011 in Japan. The earthquake and tsunami were the first to frighten and sadden us. The third, a nuclear power plant disaster, overshadowed everything, even recurring aftershocks. Would there be enough food or water? Would it be safe? Gasoline limits ensued. Should we leave? Who should leave?The Fukushima evacuation zone was set at 80km (50mi) by the US government; much more cautious than the Japanese government.Tokyo is about 225km (140mi.) from and I am about 264 km (164 mi) from Fukushima.I lived much closer to Rocky Flats and the contaminated water and air from pre-birth until my early 20's; 13 miles "as the crow flies." New suburbs were built closer to Rocky Flats-some only 3 miles away!!Told to at least prepare to evacuate Japan in 2011, I had to wonder about myself as a child growing up there near Rocky Flats. How do we compare with the children growing up near Fukushima? Who tested us? How many unsuspecting recipients of nuclear contamination have there been? Why don't we know more? Do we choose not to know? What can we learn from these grown children to shed light on Fukushima children and their descendants? Can they go home? Should we be tested as adults? Are we a prototype?Maps of the jet stream and water currents and the nuclear tests done above ground, underground or in the sea since 1951 beg us to ask, if there is any place to escape?Where did YOU grow up? Where do YOU raise your children? Read Dr. Kristen Iversen's "Full Body Burden- Growing Up in the Shadow of Rocky Flats!" Go online for audio interviews and videos of her public readings. Excellent story teller, historian, journalist!This book will not leave you!

Kristen Iversen makes good writing look easy, rather like actors and teachers can make their crafts look easy. Indeed, like good acting and good teaching, Iversen's writing has a magical quality to it. The large-scale comparison that has been most associated with Full Body Burden is between the secretive nature of Iversen's family life growing up and that of the nearby Rocky Flats weapons plant's culture of misinformation and secrecy. But Iversen's book is also dependent on numerous compelling vignettes, many of which are based on quoted conversations.When she tells about her childhood horse Tonka being rescued from freezing to death in a pond by a helpful neighbor with a truck and a rope--a neighbor who kindly gets up from dinner with his family to help--it is the conversation that drives the action, with the neighbor shouting at Tonka (and frightening Kristen) as he hits the horse hard several times to bring him back to full consciousness in order to pull him out of freezing mud with his truck and rope. This man, who later dies of cancer, is one of several heroes who show up (and then disappear) at crucial moments.The story of Iversen's first serious boyfriend, Mark, is told mainly through conversations, the most moving being Iversen's conversation with her mother in which she learns what fate has befallen Mark. Suffice it to say that not all the tragedies in the book are due to radiation contamination from Rocky flats.Also, in a development that is an unexpected and welcome twist in this good-versus-evil story, Iversen, as a single mother of two boys, finds herself seeking one of the high-paying jobs at the Rocky Flats plant. Anyone who has sought work through a temp agency will love this part of the story, which is greatly enhanced by Iversen's use of direct conversation.Of course such conversations are not true direct quotations. But I would only say that the use of made-up quotations , if they should even be called that, worked very well for me. Iversen is after all a professor of (and has written a textbook on) creative nonfiction. This is excellent storytelling.Many of the other quotations used in the book are true direct quotes, taken either from Iversen's own interviews with her subjects or from the interviews conducted by the Maria Rogers Oral History Program at the Carnegie Library in Boulder.The section on the history of plutonium, a section that only occupies a few pages near the middle of the book, seems hastily written. This is only a minor complaint, and is compensated for by the information (new to me) that the physicist Glenn Seaborg "suggested the abbreviation Pu as a joke." The joke made it into the periodic table.This was one of three nonfiction books I received in a shipment in June. I didn't intend to read it first, but found it captivating enough that I didn't want to put it down. When I did it wasn't long before I picked it up again.Several documentary films and one poem came to mind while I was reading Iversen's book. The films are: The Day After Trinity, directed by Jon Else, written by David and Janet Peoples, and nominated for an Oscar in 1981; Radio Bikini, about the two fission bomb tests at Bikini Island in the summer of 1946 (lots of archival footage); and Search for the Super, a Peter Batty film from 1975 containing numerous interviews with physicists concerning the development of the hydrogen bomb.The poem I thought of while reading Full Body Burden can be found in A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown: Essays for a Scientific Age, edited by Robert A. Baker, which contains mostly humorous essays related to science. (I have the Anchor Books 1969 printing.) One of the serious entries in the collection is Lester del Rey's ode to the evils of the Atomic Energy Commission, written in the style of the 23rd Psalm:"The AEC is my shepherd: I shall not live. It maketh me to lie down in radiant pastures; it leadeth me beside deathly waters.It destroyeth my bones; it leadeth me in the path of frightfulness for its name's sake. Yet, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will hear no evil; for thou art with me; thy bomb and thy SAC, they comfort me.Thou preparest a fable before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest thy words with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely, strontium and fallout shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the AEC--but hardly forever."

Well researched, informative book revealing the environmental issues and history of Rocky Flats, set within a moving personal memoir. I couldn't put it down - and I have a queue of friends waiting to read it - need I say more?

Very Good book about a very difficult problem written with humour and honesty

This is a haunting and powerfully detailed account of the human costs of living with nuclear weapons.

Is any amount of radiation or plutonium or tritium safe? Why did the American government (defense department) allow factories in a number of states to produce parts for nuclear bombs from 1959 to the 2000s? And why is the landscape around ALL of these sites highly polluted with all of these substances. This is a very personal story of one family's experiences and the constant threat of cancer and other radiation induced diseases. This book certainly makes one think about what we have done by releasing these substances into our environment.

This was a really good read. It certainly opened my eyes on the impact of this nuclear plant and the willingness of all of the government of the United States and all the associated regulatory agencies to lie about it and the willingness of those that lived around the plant to close their eyes to impact the plant was having on their health. The only negative I would say about this book was that it was a little repetitive and technical at points.