Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats (2012)

A terrifying, true American horror story about growing up next to America's plutonium bomb factory, and bearing witness to the suffering caused by radioactive contamination always denied or downplayed government agencies and the corporate contractors. ( )

A combination memoir, of growing up in the suburban (and dysfunctional) American dream of the 60’s and 70’s next to the very secretive nuclear weapons production facility, with investigative reporting of the history of the facility including the disastrous fires that may have produced ‘criticalities.’ An astounding and fascinating expose and a must read for all taxpayers who may have an interest in military nuclear spending. A brilliant, eye-opening narrative. ( )

“Rocky Flats bills itself as one of the safest government facilities in the country…, but “signs can lie”. Kristen Iverson grew up in Rocky Flats, Colorado, home of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, operated by Dow Chemical, which made plutonium “triggers” for nuclear bombs. She had grown up hearing about deformed animals and people dying of cancer, but as most Rocky Flats employees and nearby neighborhoods thought, “the Government would tell us if something was wrong.”

See my complete review at The Eclectic Review ( )

Having lived for more than 40 years in Colorado, but thankfully, not in the shadows of Rocky Flats, I was both interested in and woefully uninformed about what went on at this facility for producing plutonium "triggers." Now that I've read the book, I know that the "woefully unaware" part is not entirely my fault - great effort was made to keep me and everyone else unaware and misinformed.

Full Body Burden is both an expose of Rocky Flats and a memoir of someone growing up almost literally in its shadow. The author grew up in a time when kids were sent outside to play in the morning and not expected to come home until dinner. As a memoir, the book was warm and thoughtful, but I was appalled at the revolving door attitude towards pets that came and went. As in so many memoirs now, alcoholism was involved, but this was not a "poor little me" type of story.

As an expose of Rocky Flats, I was appalled by all that went on there, by the intentional secrecy and lies, by the disregard for safety and care. All these years later, records are still sealed, whistle blowers have had their lives ruined. And of course, people closest to the plant have paid the greatest price.

And when RF was dismantled, I thought that clean up meant clean up. Silly me. I have always been bothered with nuclear facilities because of the problem of disposal of the waste, lethal substances with half-lives sometimes in the millions of years, with the devil-may-care attitude that someone will figure out something later. I learned that there are so many more problems than just that.

The negatives to the book are that the story was not always told in a linear manner, and the skipping around was sometimes hard to follow, and that there was too much repetition, particularly of scientific facts important to the story. Still, I found it quite interesting and eye-opening.

I was given a copy of the book for review, for which I am grateful. ( )

This book had quite a bit of technical and scientific information in it, but it's written with a narrative that makes it easily readable. I didn't always understand the nitty gritty of the science that Iversen was writing about but I could understand the points she was trying to make anyway. I don't have much of a head for science so that is probably mostly my fault anyway.

I liked how she alternated the story between what was happening at Rocky Flats and what was happening in her own personal life. Though it was sometimes hard to make a direct connection between the two, both stories were compelling.

If you care anything about the environment or life on this planet, reading Full Body Burden will make you mad. It's unbelievable the amount of irresponsibility involved with the management of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. Even though it wasn't a feel-good book by any means, I think it's still an important book to read. The more aware we are of these types of situations, the harder it will be for the people involved to keep shirking responsibility - I would hope anyway. ( )