Mar. 16, 2004 - 19:35 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Same Old Stuff

Where Colorado 72 crosses Colorado 93 - at the northeast corner of that intersection lies Rocky Flats. A place loaded with plutonium during the cold war. It has been in the process of being disassembled for some years and some of the hot stuff shipped out.

I think anyone somewhat familiar with the territory can easily see that it is downhill to the city of Denver and closer to Denver than Boulder. We are fortunate that tragedy and fallout from an atomic explosion didn't wipe Denverites off the map.

In this mornings paper The Rocky Mountain News has an article by John C. Eslin somewhat of a report on a book by Wes McKinley the foreman of the grand jury that investigated the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant from 1989 to 1991. Co-authored by New Mexico lawyer Caron Balkany. The book is called, "The Ambushed Grand Jury."

I remember that there were many hard feelings over the proceedings between jurors and the federal government. There is still some effort to open the proceedings to the public, but guess what -- a federal judge turned that effort down.

The authors, "Revive the allegation that operators at the plant in Jefferson County burned nuclear waste at night." "They quote a former Rocky Flats worker who said he was the foreman of the crew that burned the waste over a weekend shortly before he quit working there."

"The 'midnight burning' allegation was a key part of the Justice Department's original case against the plant operators." "Photographs taken by an FBI plane that flew over the plant took thermal images that were used as the basis for a search warrant. The warrant led to June 1989 FBI raid on the plant. "But prosecutors later dismissed the value of the aerial photographs because they measured temperature differences, not actual temperatures. Thus on a cold night the plant appeared to be burning hot, they contended."

"Some of the 23 members of the grand jury wanted to indict individuals at the Department of Energy and Rockwell Internationall, which ran the plant from 1975 until late 1989."

"Instead, the U.S. attorney's office reached a plea agreement in which Rockwell agreed to pay an $18.5 million fine, but no one was charged."

"As recently as last week members of the grand jury sought permission to waive grand jury secrecy and tell their story. A federal judge denied their request."

"With the book McKinley sets off in a different direction."

"I know some folks think I'm violating my Rule 6(e) Grand Jury Secrecy oath by doing this," he writes. "But we don't think the Rule or the Constitution or the law was meant to protect illegal acts of the Justice Department."

"The book then quotes excerpts from a journal that McKinley has been keeping since 1985. The journal entries describe in detail a tense standoff between McKinley and then U.S. Attorney Mike Norton. Mckinley said that Norton asked the grand jury to rewrite its report and to approve an indictment against Rockwell. "No, I said We will not rewrite the report. We are going to hand in all of our documents as they now exist, "McKinley wrote."

On Monday (March 15), Norton disputed the the central premise of the book. "The people that were involved in that process for the Justice Department were good and honorable people with integrity," he said."I understand and appreciate the motives and emotions of grand jurors who thought they were there for a specific purpose, from my perspective, I'm obligated to abide by the rule of law and not by the passions of the moment."

My feeling is that these were not "passions of the moment," this thing has been boiling since the late 1980's. Norton tries to negate grand jurors. He said, "I understand the motives and emotions of grand jurors who thought they were there for a specific purpose" Now just what the heck ! ! ! ! Dissatisfied grand jurors I feel have a hell of an edge on the Feds to my way of looking at it, and by their actions I feel they are more qualified to be called "good and honorable people with integrity." I still think that there was something that stinks and the smell has a lasting effect. Disqualification of the evidence from the overflights of Rocky Flats very probably to my thoughts were valid, a technicality. Surely there were overflights in weather temperature the same as the night they checked and had a comparison set of pictures, can't imagine the FBI not nailing it down. A technicality I guess.

Inspection of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal on the outskirts of Denver turned up a number of things and reaction by the public caused more investigation. It was found that there were a bunch of things unknown about where stuff was buried. It was found that there was a plume of contaminates flowing from there in the ground water in the direction of the Platte River, right through heavily populated areas. More work was done on that. They are still finding shells and things some of which contain deadly gases.

I remember how long the authorities who were involved in the Columbine Massacre tried to keep a lid on any information. But little by little damaging things keep showing up on the authorities.

Taking the old official policy and applying it fairly, "THE PUBLIC" are also the ones who NEED TO KNOW. But, you know the song and dance just more and more of the Same Old Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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