Committee Descriptions

The Rocky Flats Cold War Museum board of directors has established several committees to do the essential work involved in developing, promoting and funding a new museum.

Click on a committee name for more information:

Collections Committee
Communications Committee
Oral Histories Committee

Collections Committee
Chairman: Don Rohlf

A committee of former employees and protesters of the Rocky Flats Plant have collected artifacts, documents, photos, videotapes and other memorabilia related to the former nuclear plant. The materials collected will be used for future museum displays. 

Members worked hard to save materials before the plant was decontaminated and permanently closed in 2005.  A computer was donated and a database program was acquired for accurate tracking and descriptions of the inventory.   The collections are stored in several donated cargo containers and in storage space of the City of Arvada.  

The collection includes numerous photos, videotapes and important documents such as the original report selecting Rocky Flats as the plant site and the first contract to operate the plant.  

The collection also includes gloveboxes used for training Rocky Flats employees on how to work with plutonium; the protective clothing, respiratory protective devices and security badges worn by workers; radiation measuring devices, criticality alarms, and horns used in the buildings; a waste transport container cut in half to show its contents; and various models of the site and its products. Mockups of plutonium recovery from nuclear weapons components have been acquired.
 
Items collected from activists who protested the nuclear weapons production plant include t-shirts, buttons, postersand an Indian tepee.  

Do you have any Rocky Flats artifacts? Please contact us if you wish to donate something related to Rocky Flats to preserve its history. 

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The Communications Committee has met monthly to develop a logo; develop eight display boards to promote the museum at city and county offices near Rocky Flats; to develop a web site; and to promote special events and activities.

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Oral Histories Committee
Chairman: Ann Lockhart

In October 2003, Dorothy Ciarlo, Ph.D., of Boulder approached the Rocky Flats Museum board suggesting that the museum participate in collecting oral histories about Rocky Flats workers since the plant was undergoing decontamination and decommissioning. (The Rocky Flats closure was completed in late 2005.)

The museum board created an Oral History Committee in late 2003 and began collaborating with the Maria Rogers Oral History Program at Boulder’s Carnegie Library for Local History. The museum and library agreed to share interviews for the oral history collection, which was added to the library’s web site.

The committee's mission:

• To document the stories, events, facts, emotions and experiences around the Rocky Flats plant and its social and environmental impact on the community and the nation;

• To capture larger attitudes and conflicts over the nuclear industry in the United States;

• To understand the context, motives and mentality behind the Cold War.

In 2004, the committee created a list of potential interviewees and an inventory of existing oral histories related to the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant done by

• Don Rohlf who did 10 interviews for Kaiser-Hill,

• Dorothy Ciarlo, Ph.D. who did 36 interviews for Boulder’s Carnegie Library beginning in 1998, and

• LeRoy Moore, Ph.D., of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, who did 31 interviews.

90 interviews completed (May 2004-March 2007)

In May 2004, the group secured a $37,599 grant from the State Historical Fund to conduct 75 interviews to capture the stories of former Rocky Flats workers, political leaders, government regulators, activists and others familiar with the Cold War nuclear plant. The top priority for interviews was given to those who were elderly and/or in poor health and who had extensive knowledge of and experience with the site. With the funding, the committee was able to complete more than 90 videotaped and transcribed interviews by March 31, 2007.

Interviewees

Among those interviewed were long-time Rocky Flats workers including janitors, firemen, security guards, radiation technicians, physicists and plant managers.  Key political leaders such as former Governor Dick Lamm, former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth and former U.S. Representative David Skaggs were also interviewed, since they were frequently called on to respond to public controversies related to Rocky Flats.

The collection includes interviews of local and national activists as Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War to the New York Times in 1971. Staff from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment were interviewed about their roles in regulating hazardous waste and air and water emissions and oversight of the Rocky Flats cleanup. Nearby developer Charles Church McKay provided his opinions of the plant located on land his uncle Marcus Church previously owned. 
Committee members

Boulder retired psychologist Dorothy Ciarlo and freelance writers Hannah Nordhaus and Nancy Nachman-Hunt conducted the interviews. Sandy Adler did the transcriptions. Other committee members were Susan Becker of the Carnegie Library, LeRoy Moore, Kim Grant of the City of Arvada, and Ann Lockhart, committee chair.

Oral History Presentation prepared

The Fragmented Stories of Rocky Flats is the title of a new PowerPoint presentation summarizing the themes emerging from the 90 videotaped oral histories. Quotes from workers, activists, government regulators and others are part of the slide show. Members of the committee will present this at the Oral History Association’s annual meeting in October in Oakland, CA.

To arrange to have the presentation made to your group, contact Ann Lockhart at 303-388-6978.  Interested citizens are invited to provide additional names and contact information of those who may have interesting stories and experiences related to Rocky Flats.

Listen to & read the oral history transcripts

Check the Rocky Flats oral history collection on the website of the Boulder Public Library's Carnegie Branch, Maria Rogers Oral History Collection. You can also do word searches of the transcripts. 

See www.bplcarnegie.org/oralhistory.  Click on Special Collections. Click on Rocky Flats.

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