by Adrienne Anderson

February 1, 2008

Despite the onging risks posed by rocket fuel in the vicinity of major water sources serving several metro Denver area communities, RMPJC's Nuclear Nexus Project learned this week that the Denver Water Board remained silent on an important opportunity to protect public health.

Denver Water, despite a personal appeal from RMPJC last month, made no comments to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) concerning a controversial policy that would allow a highly dangerous toxic compound to go undetected in water supplies unless it exceeded the state standard for public health protection of this material in surface water and groundwater by nearly 73,000 times.

The Denver Water Board uses water from an area immediately downhill from the Lockheed Martin Corporation, whose 5,000+ acre site is highly contaminated with this deadly substance, which has been leeching into adjacent creeks and even offsite to the South Platte River as it enters Chatfield Reservoir. The reservoir has been used off and on in recent years for drinking water throughout parts of the metro Denver area by a number of water providers.

RMPJC Urged Protective Action

On January 9, 2008, several members of RMPJC visited the Denver Water Board of Commissioners during the public comment segment of their regular meeting and urged them to take a tough stance to protect public health from exposures to cancer-causing NDMA (n-nitrosodimethylamine), a dangerous and highly potent ingredient of rocket fuel. The Commissioners were asked to discontinue their "head in the sand" position about poisons coming off the Lockheed Martin plant site. After 50 years of documented impacts to Denver Water supplies immediately downhill, the Board needs to begin to act in the interests of its ratepayers and consumers, RMPJC urged.

From left to right, Dr. Ron Forthofer, Dr. LeRoy Moore, Dr. Robert McFarland visited the Denver Water Board of Commissioners' meeting with Adrienne Anderson, Coordinator of RMPJC's Nuclear Nexus Project. RMPJC urged that they appeal to the State of Colorado for stringent measures to protect public health from NDMA. To learn more about this issue and what you can do, see the article "Fueling Cancer in Colorado," along with an attached copy of the comments RMPJC made on the state proposal.

A Toxic History

Denver Water, instead of suing Martin Marietta (predecessor to Lockheed Martin) for damages to its drinking water adjacent to the rocket manufacturer's operations in the 1980's, threw their lot in with the military contractor. Now for 23 years of record, Denver Water has acted in unity with the company in issuing denials that the water has ever been affected by contamination from the missile plant.

Records made public through a citizens' investigation, however, prove the contamination from the Martin plant had been known to Denver Water since the mid-1950's when the top-secret rocket plant first took up operations above the City of Denver's original source of drinking water. In subsequent decades Denver Water failed to act for public health protection.

A New Course Requested

RMPJC appealed to the DWB of Commissioners to chart a different course now, siding with its own customers rather than with Lockheed Martin. To do so, they were urged to direct their staff to submit comments by a January 15, 2008, deadline on a CDPHE proposal to allow the highly toxic NDMA compound chemical to contaminate water at more than 73,000 times the state’s standard for human health protection before labs in Colorado would have to report its presence. The substance is dangerous at the tiniest of levels and is considered a probable human carcinogen even at levels lower than a lab can detect its presence.

Evidence of Denver Water Collusion with Rocket Plant Chronicled

RMPJC provided Denver Water Commissioners a document that chronicles the history of Martin's toxic contamination and impacts to the downstream Denver Water’s property and years of failure by Denver Water to protect its own water supply. The document was a 1989 statement to the Colorado Attorney General by a former Colorado Health Department Hazardous Waste Division staffer whose position involved inspection of Martin's numerous hazardous waste activities. The account detailed unsuccessful efforts to get stiffer enforcement actions against the corporation and remedial responses, and efforts by Denver Water officials to obfuscate the truth about their own prior knowledge of Martin's pollutants affecting the drinking water sources below.

The document provided evidence of a disturbing history of cover-up that reinforced RMPJC’s appeal that the Denver Water Board counter CDPHE’s reckless move to gut its own standard for NDMA, which in effect would essentially end regulation of this substance in public water supplies in Colorado.

DO NOTHING POLICY

Despite RMPJC's appeal on this important public health matter involving the safety of metro Denver's water supplies and significant potential for cancer prevention, the Denver Water Commissioners took no action. At the meeting they said they would discuss the matter further. If such a discussion did occur, they evidently decided they would do nothing.

Minutes of any deliberations by the Denver Water Board have not yet been made available on the agency's website.

REVOLVING DOOR? CONFLICTS OF INTEREST?

A majority of the five-member board of Denver Water Commissioners, three out of the five, are principals in real estate enterprises, parties who have an interest in there being plenty of low-cost water available for their various projects.

Of the remaining two, Penfield Tate III, since being appointed a Denver Water Commissioner by Mayor John Hickenlooper, was invited to join the Denver office of a national law firm, Greenberg Traurig, as a shareholder. Of concern is that the international lobbying firm’s many Fortune 500 corporate clients includes Lockheed Martin. The law firm has not only defended the huge military contractor in suits brought against it, but Greenberg Traurig seeks to shape public perceptions about its client, the world’s largest military contractor.

For example, Greenberg Traurig lawyers provided the editorial support for a 2007 article in the online magazine National Defense to tout the company's purported ethical culture. Such claims might be contrasted with the company's actual record of behavior, as for years Lockheed Martin has had among the worst records in the country for violations of federal laws at its sites in Colorado and elsewhere around the country. Currenty, the Project on Government Oversight lists Lockheed Martin as having the worst record among federal contractors for misconduct including violations of ethics, environmental, and labor laws, and contract fraud.

Does Denver Water Commissioner Tate’s association with Greenberg Traurig constitute a conflict of interest when it comes to protecting Denver Water from toxic compounds including NDMA that are contaminating metro Denver water supply sources downhill from the Lockheed Martin plant in Colorado?

Commissioner Tate was absent from the January 9th meeting at which RMPJC urged the Denver Water Board to counter CDPHE’s move to effectively end regulation of NDMA in public water supplies in Colorado.

Key participants in the process with CDPHE that have led to this proposal which seeks to mask detection of NDMA in Colorado water supplies are representatives from Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Air Force, Metro Wastewater and other entities where NDMA is a problem, including Lowry Landfill. The City of Boulder has also participated in drafting this policy now at controversy though a group regularly meeting with CDPHE officials. North of Boulder is another NDMA source, the former Beech Aircraft site, which poses a potent threat to some water supplies used in Boulder County, and Boulder's wastewater operations would be impacted by the policy, as well.

Of further note, Patricia Wells, an attorney for Denver Water, has publicly denied that poisons from the Lockheed Martin plant have ever impacted Denver Water - despite volumnious documentary evidence to the contrary of public record. She was recently appointed to the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission by Governor Bill Ritter.

WHAT TO DO

Citizens are asked to contact Governor Bill Ritter and ask why Colorado's citizens are being short-shrifted when it comes to public health and protection of our limited and highly valued water resources against contamination from companies like Lockheed Martin. Further, ask why he has appointed to the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission an individual with a history of denying such pollution impacts in the past instead of taking proactive steps to protect our limited water supplies from contamination by the cancer-causing substances from the Lockheed Martin/U.S. Air Force site.

Citizens are also encouraged to contact the Denver Water Board of Commissioners and ask them why they are not taking aggressive steps to protect Denver Water from contamination by this and other toxic compounds, essentially letting Lockheed Martin use one of our region's major water sources as a toxic toilet.

While the Denver Water Board fails to urge CDPHE to take protective action regarding NDMA in Colorado water supplies, in California a water utiity subject to NDMA discharges is suing the polluter, Aerojet, for costs of treatment and other damages.

Citizens are likewise urged to contact other water purveyors who draw water from the vicinity of Lockheed Martin - including the Centennial Water District, City of Littleton, City of Englewood, City of Aurora, Highlands Ranch, and others.

The next meeting of the Denver Water Board at which public comment can be made will be Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at the agency's administration building, 1600 W. 12th Avenue in Denver, in the 3rd floor conference room. Public comment on any topic not already on the agenda is allowed at the beginning of each meeting, which starts at 9:15 a.m.

The Denver Water Board of Commissioners and their biographies are below, as taken from the agency's website.

All of the current commissioners are appointees of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

	Thomas A. Gougeon, President Appointed July 11, 2005 Term expires July 10, 2011 Tom Gougeon is a principal in Continuum Partners LLC, a Colorado-based development company known for "green" building projects. He served as CEO of the Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation and conducted research at the Denver Research Institute in community planning and natural resource economics. At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he worked on the Clean Air Act, Western energy development and public lands issues. He is a former chair of the Nature Conservancy of Colorado and Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, and he served on the board of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Denver and a master’s in city and regional planning from Harvard University.
	Penfield Tate III, First Vice President Appointed October 18, 2005 Term expires July 10, 2011 Penfield Tate III is a former state legislator and a partner in the law firm of Greenberg Traurig. He is a graduate of Colorado State University and Antioch School of Law. He has served on the boards of the Colorado Bar Association, the State of Colorado Banking Board, Cerebral Palsy of Colorado, the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, Five Points Community Center and the Metropolitan State College of Denver Foundation. He has been the executive director of the Colorado Department of Administration, an aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña and a trade regulation attorney for the Federal Trade Commission.
George Beardsley Commissioner since February 2, 2004 Reappointed November 6, 2007 Term expires July 10, 2013 George Beardsley is a principal with Inverness Properties, LLC, which specializes in the development and operation of commercial real estate properties. He is a partner with G.L. Beardsley and Sons, which had ranch operations in Elbert and Douglas Counties and maintains ranch operations in Summit County. Beardsley is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Colorado Conservation Trust, the Colorado State University Research Foundation and the Gates Foundation. He is the past president of the Inverness Metropolitan Water & Sanitation District, a member of the Urban Land Institute's Environmental Council and the Colorado Forum and its Water Committee; and a former board member of Great Outdoors Colorado.
John Lucero Appointed September 13, 2007 Term expires July 10, 2011 John Lucero is a broker associate at Lucero Real Estate, Inc., a local real estate company that offers residential, commercial, development and investment real estate expertise. He is also a former director of the Denver Board of Realtors, where he received the 2007 President’s Distinguished Service Award and has been a member of numerous committees. Lucero has also served on several committees for the Colorado Association of Realtors and the Colorado Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. He currently serves as a member of the Denver Zoning Code Task Force and was a member of the mayor’s transition team for Community Planning and Development in 2003. Lucero replaces Commissioner Harris Sherman.
Susan Daggett Appointed November 6, 2007 Term expires July 10, 2013 Susan Daggett is an independent consultant and has worked with a variety of conservation groups to address impacts associated with oil and gas development in the Rocky Mountain West. Prior to her consulting work, Daggett was an attorney for Earthjustice where she represented nonprofit environmental groups in litigation under the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and a variety of other environmental statutes. Daggett has more than 13 years of experience serving as an attorney for various organizations, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees and as Policy Committee Chair for The Nature Conservancy of Colorado and is also a member of Greenprint Denver. Daggett holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Mount Holyoke College and a law degree from Yale University. She replaces Commissioner Denise Maes.