by Adrienne Anderson

The Titan II Missile Program in Colorado is history, but its highly toxic legacy and risks for escalating cancer rates among our residents is not.

Huge amounts of highly toxic wastes from the fuel mixed for the missiles were released into Colorado’s environment for decades. The top-secret fuel, known as Aerozine-50, was a blend that included 50% hydrazine, a compound that readily breaks down into n-nitrosodimethylamine (or NDMA, for short), dangerous and highly carcinogenic compounds. The potent propellants gave the Titan IIs, the largest inter-continental missiles ever developed by the U.S. Air Force, the capability to travel at 15,000 miles per hour to targeted locales over 5,000 miles away, with the intent to obliterate entire populations then deigned as threats to U.S. security.

Threats to Local Water

Now, the poisonous substances threaten the safety of our own local water supplies at numerous sites throughout the state.

Fueling the controversy is a current proposal by Colorado’s health agency that would allow huge levels of a deadly fuel compound, known as n-nitrosodimethylamine (or NDMA for short) to be masked from public detection, despite potent risks for public health and higher cancer rates, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center warns.

Under the plan, a lab in Colorado would not have to report detections of NDMA in submitted samples unless the level was nearly 73,000 times above that considered safe for public health protection. Currently, the state standard for NDMA is 0.69 parts per trillion – an amount equivalent to less that half a teaspoon of the chemical in 500 Olympic sized swimming pools. Yet under the proposal, while the standard would remain unchanged, the level at which its presence would have to be reported would be raised to 50,000 parts per trillion.

In California and Massachusetts, by contrast, the states are closing drinking water wells contaminated with the substance where only the tiniest of fractions of the compound have been detected, at levels many thousands of times that below what Colorado will seek to cover up, if this proposal is not jerked due to public outcry. The State of California has set a Notification Level for NDMA at 10 parts per trillion and a Public Health Goal of 3 parts per trillion.

In Colorado, the highly toxic and potent carcinogen now contaminates large land areas where the substance has been found at former rocket manufacturing, fuel test, mix and dumping sites around the state, including sites in Boulder, Adams, Jefferson and Arapahoe Counties. Alarmingly, each are upgradient of drinking water supplies in active use by parts of Front Range communities, serving tens of thousands of people. The proposal could have major public health consequences elsewhere around the state.

For years, Titan Missiles that would each be loaded with a W-53 nine megaton thermonuclear warhead were manufactured in Colorado at the Martin Marietta Aerospace plant (now Lockheed Martin) on a hillside above the South Platte River at the southwest edge of metro Denver. The missiles after being loaded with the warheads at the Lowry Air Force base in Denver would then be trucked to the Lowry Bombing Range southeast of Denver where they would be lowered into silos and readied for launch at the touch of a button.

At the Martin site, the missile engines were tested using the highly toxic liquid fuel blend, which then was illegally dumped or flushed downhill to public water supply sources below for decades, records show. The consequences were allegedly deadly for some little children consuming the contaminated water in the 1970’s and early 80’s, some medical experts concluded, against denials by Martin and the water purveyor who piped the polluted around various parts of the metro area, the Denver Water Board.

The Aerozine-50 fuel used at Martin had been mixed at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Commerce City, where NDMA also contaminates water flowing northwards toward Brighton.

NDMA also poisons water from the Beech/Raytheon site above Boulder, which drains downward to the Left Hand Reservoir, a water supply source for various parts of Boulder County at times.

NDMA in large volumes also contaminates the Lowry Landfill southeast of Denver, atop three regional aquifer systems.

Further, NDMA is also a byproduct of wastewater treatment, so its presence in water downgradientof sewage plants in the state poses still further concerns, especially for municipalities who draw their water from below such discharge points.

At the Lockheed Martin/U.S. Air Force installation, state officials in November said they were also “in negotiations” with the U.S. Air Force to allow them to ignore the state’s health-based standards for the Lockheed Martin site in a state-mandated clean-up. Studies show an entire underground geological formation is saturated with the poison, a virtually permanent channel for the NDMA pollutant to impact the South Platte River and the adjacent Chatfield Reservoir below, now being used as a public drinking water source for several parts of Metro Denver.

• The Left Hand Water District, which serves rural Boulder and Weld County, including Erie, Longmont and Niwot, and parts of Boulder. The Left Hand Reservoir is part of this system's water supply, and is in the watershed drainage area of the former Beech/Raytheon site northwest of Boulder (where there's now a McGuckins Hardware warehouse.). While the EPA claims there has been no impact to the Left Hand Reservoir from this former fuel blending site, documents obtained from the Boulder County Health Department prove there has in fact been a history of contamination impact. A sample of water taken from the reservoir in the the late 1990's had high levels of hydrazine in it, the parent compound of NDMA, records show.
  
• Denver Water, which uses Chatfield Reservoir, most recently stating "in emergency situations," though contradictory statements make this uncertain, and Denver Water has refused to provide documents regarding its specific history of use of Chatfield Reservoir water, citing "Homeland Security"
• Englewood Water, which which moves water from Chatfield Reservoir downgradient of Lockheed Martin to McLellan Reservoir, Englewood's water storage facility in the south metro area
• Aurora Water, which pipes water from the South Platte River/Chatfield area for storage in the Aurora Reservoir on the Lowry Bombing Range. Last year, Aurora hired a company to build a multi-million dollar system to treat their water with ultraviolet light. The same company had installed its system at sites in California with the purpose of lowering NDMA levels for water districts contaminated with the substance.
• Centennial Water District, which uses Chatfield Reservoir vicinity water to recharge its groundwater wells, pumping surface water into the aquifer to supplement its system of groundwater wells.

Under such an alarming scenario, citizens should expect the most protective action by our state health officials, but the reverse appears to be the case with this proposal. Those paid from our taxpayer dollars to protect public health at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) appear to be protecting the polluters, instead. The state’s Water Quality Control Division, which has concocted the plan with influence by key polluters, seems to be attempting an end run around the tough NDMA standard designed to protect public health. If successful, the measure could mean that a sample of someone’s water could be polluted by NDMA at 49,999 parts per trillion, enough to have caused a widespread public health crisis, yet be masked as a “non-detect” by the testing lab, unbeknownst to the party seeking the assurance about their water’s quality and safety.

The question must be asked: Does Governor Ritter’s health department think Colorado citizens are 73,000 times less susceptible to the cancer-causing potency of this toxic rocket fuel compound than the citizens of California or Massachusetts? Or are our state’s regulators simply 73,000 times more susceptible to polluters’ undue influence in setting policiesto protect polluters from their environmental liabilities, while putting citizens of this state at risk?

This could be the most important act of cancer prevention in the state at this time. Citizens must contact Governor Bill Ritter and urge that his CDPHE appointee, Jim Martin, pull this outrageous proposal under his direction, and support maximum clean-up at NDMA contaminated sites for protection of Colorado’s limited water sources and public health.

If you do not want to risk children here being born with neuroblastoma or develop kidney cancers before they make it to the first grade, join in vigorously opposing this proposal and advocate the strongest protections for the quality of Colorado’s water supplies.

Contact Governor Ritter about this. Tell him that Colorado's citizens demand the same protection from this cancer-causing toxic poison that citizens in California are getting, and to protect the quality of Colorado's precious water sources.

You can write to him on-line at this link.

Or:

Also send a copy of your comments to:

Dave Akers, Colorado Water Quality Control Division

E-Mail: daakers@smtpgate.dphe.state.co.us.

Update: The RMPJC submitted comments on this proposal on January 15th. They can be read in the attached file, below.

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Adrienne Anderson served on the faculty at CU Boulder and for over a decade taught highly ranked courses on environmental ethics, environmental justice, and has researched water contamination problems throughout Colorado and other parts of the western U.S. since 1983, most in the Denver metropolitan area.  Anderson coordinated RMPJC’s new “Nuclear Nexus Project, Working to End the Local Hazards and the Global Threat" and established RMPJC's "Safe Water" project.  She continues to support RMPJC on joint projects where labor and neighbors can unite for safer workplaces, communities and the environment.  

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