Rocky Flats was part of a nationwide complex that produced nuclear weapons for national security during the Cold War, the central international conflict of the 20th century. After WWII, the U.S. and Russia became competing superpowers in an arms race, both developing nuclear weapons and political alliances to protect their interests.
Neither nation could use these nuclear weapons without risking retaliation and possible global catastrophe. The Soviet Union collapsed after 1989, unable to maintain the high cost of this arms race.
Rocky Flats stopped weapons production in 1992. Unfortunately, weapons production also created environmental contamination and heightened worker and public health risks. The site has been decommissioned and remediated.
In response to the planned demolition and cleanup of the plant site, concerned stakeholders began in 1998 to explore ways to preserve the history of Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats had local, national, and global significance. Its employees played a key role in the Cold War, which was the most important geopolitical struggle in the world in the last 50 years.
In July 2001, the board incorporated an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to develop a museum. It received an initial planning grant of $150,000 from Kaiser-Hill, the company hired by the federal government to decommission and remediate Rocky Flats.
The museum has received an offer of 1.4 acres of land near the plant site. The land will be donated by the owner, providing funding can be obtained for designing and building the museum.
The museum board includes representatives from local government, state regulatory agencies, environmental and peace groups, academe, concerned citizens, current and former Rocky Flats employees and contractors.
Challenges and Opportunities
1. The RFCWM seeks to preserve representative examples of artifacts that illustrate the history of the site and its role in the Cold War. Artifacts include glove boxes, storage containers, photographs, building diagrams, respirators and protective suits, radiation measuring instruments, hand scanners, gloves, signs and the Tepee from anti-nuclear demonstrations, and a security station.
2. Aging and retirement of the Rocky Flats work force means that the stories of plant workers are disappearing with each passing day. The RFCWM has addressed this problem by completing a scholarly oral history and video project to document the stories of current and former plant workers. The project included interviews with non-plant workers and people from surrounding communities, including community activists who opposed the plant's operations.
3. Contamination will remain in some areas at the site for thousands of years. This problem requires ongoing site monitoring, stewardship and other means of institutional control to protect public health and the environment in the future.
The RFCWM seeks to assist in these efforts by serving as a repository for archives and data about contamination at the site, and by providing information to citizens that will help to protect public health and the environment for the future. In this way, the Museum can serve as a vital resource for recruiting and informing future citizen-stewards, those who will be caring for this site for several generations. Potentially, the RFCWM will be integrated with educational programs associated with the nature preserve currently planned for location on a portion of the site.
