A Fearless FBI Agent and the Raid on Rocky Flats
This week I’m thrilled to share with you another story from the forthcoming documentary, Full Body Burden: The Documentary. FBI agent Jon Lipsky is truly one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. Lipsky led the FBI/EPA raid on Rocky Flats on June 6, 1989 – the first time in U.S. history that two government agencies, the FBI and EPA, have ever raided another government agency, the Department of Energy. Lipsky has been a key figure in the Rocky Flats saga ever since. I was fortunate to interview him years ago as part of the research for my book, and recently we interviewed him on camera for the documentary.
First, a quick note on my current book project, Friend and Faithful Stranger: Nikola Tesla in the Gilded Age, which -- after ten years of research! -- is finally nearing completion. This past week I traveled to New York for the Tesla Spirit Conference at the New Yorker Hotel (where Tesla spent the last years of his life) to give a presentation and meet with “Tesla people” from all over the world. I’ll have an update for you shortly.
But now, back to 1984. A former Las Vegas street cop, Jon Lipsky is working with the FBI in Orange County, California when he is transferred to Denver. His first hint about Rocky Flats comes from his wife. The couple is expecting their first baby, and as they begin looking for a new home, she reads in the newspaper what little is known about Rocky Flats and how it might pose a threat. They decide, as a precaution, to choose a neighborhood far from the plant. At that time the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant is well hidden behind the veil of national security. No one really knows what is going on at the plant, and the government and operators of the plant keep quiet – or lie.
But things are changing, including environmental law. In 1984 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) becomes criminalized and enforceable, which is why FBI agent Jon Lipsky finds himself assigned as a new liaison to the EPA’s Office of Criminal Investigations. It is then that he begins to hear alarming stories about Rocky Flats. Lipsky teams up with William Smith of the EPA National Environmental Investigation Unit and they begin their work. It looks like there may be substantial evidence to indicate the plant is operating unsafely and has been for years. Lipsky reaches out to other sources, non-governmental organizations, and community groups. But progress is slow. Years of secrecy and threats have made workers and activists alike very nervous. No one wants to talk. And the Assistant U.S. Attorney is reluctant to help move things forward for a host of reasons: for one thing, Rocky Flats is a huge employer for the state, and there are plenty of political reasons to let sleeping dogs lie.
But Lipsky is firm in his conviction. “If they’re committing a crime,” he says, “we should open the case.”
Finally, after months of effort, the tide starts to turn. A few workers inside the plant seem willing to talk, including engineer Jim Stone, and the truth begins to emerge.
Jim Stone has been waiting months—no, decades—for a call like this. He loads up his boxes and takes them down to the FBI’s Denver office. A polite, slightly stout man wearing a fedora, Stone seems an unlikely whistleblower. But he has a story and he can’t wait to tell it. A long-time employee of Rocky Flats, his job was to troubleshoot problems, and from 1980-1986 he had raised concerns about serious environmental and health hazards including problems with pondcrete, pipelines, broken pressure valves, beryllium, and significant amounts, even pounds, of missing plutonium. (Note to reader: if inhaled, one millionth of a gram of plutonium can cause cancer in the human body.)
The Department of Energy sweeps Stone’s concerns under the rug and eventually he’s fired.
At this point Lipsky has few confirmed facts about contamination at Rocky Flats, but one thing he knows for sure is that the incinerator in Building 771, the primary plutonium production building, is supposed to be shut down. Yet he’s heard numerous rumors that it’s being operated illegally.
Jim Stone takes a seat facing FBI agent Jon Lipsky and William Smith. “Are they incinerating plutonium at Rocky Flats?” Lipsky asks.
“Oh yeah,” Stone replies. “They have so much waste out there that they have to fire up that incinerator. I told them there are better ways, that you don’t have to do it that way. That incinerator is not protected with suitable filters. It’s not even designed to burn common trash properly without causing air pollution. But they said no, this is the most expedient, we’re going to do it this way.”
Rockwell and the DOE have always contended that the 771 incinerator is exempt from RCRA regulation because Rocky Flats is a “plutonium recovery” facility and thus granted an exclusion.
“How do you know these things?” Lipsky asks.
“Well, I worked in that building all the time,” Stone says. “The new incinerator, the fluidized bed incinerator, never did work. They’ve tried it a few times but could never get it certified. There’s a limit on how much hazardous and radioactive waste they can store, and they have no room for it. So they burn it. They burn waste contaminated with plutonium, low-level and medium-level waste.”
“What else do you know?” Smith asks.
“I can tell you about a lot of things,” Stone replies. “Standley Lake, for example. Not only is there plutonium and americium and uranium and you-name-it, but I know by the stratus in the lake sediment when that contamination occurred.”
“A lot of contamination goes up the stack [the Building 771 incinerator smokestack] and into the environment,” Stone continues, “because the filters leak like a sieve. The wind prevails from the west. It’s the same thing with the groundwater, with Great Western and Standley Lake just downhill, right on down to the Platte River. Denver is sitting at the gravity base of all this pollution coming down from Rocky Flats. And it has to be stopped at the source.” He pauses. “That’s always an engineer’s primary objective: determine the cause of the problem, get at the source, and correct it there.” Stone tells Lipsky and Smith about his long history at Rocky Flats, how he knows the facility inside and out. Workers have inadequate protection, he says. But he also talks about how workers mess with or remove the filters, because filters slow down production. He talks about how productivity trumps safety or environmental laws. “There’s a lot of plutonium missing,” Stone adds, “some in the ventilation ducts and piping, some blowing around outside.”
Lipsky looks over at Smith. It looks like they might have their first source.
“They blackballed me,” Stone adds. “The industry is spooky about whistle-blowers. But I don’t see myself as a whistle-blower. I see myself as a good engineer.”
Jim Stone is the first insider to give details into the sites’ radioactive pollution, specifically the alarming allegation that Rockwell is incinerating plutonium-contaminated waste at night. Soon Lipsky and Smith are able talk to another worker, and then another. They have a case.
With this ammunition in hand, Lipsky and Smith contact Ken Fimberg, assistant U.S. attorney for the state of Colorado. If Rocky Flats is burning contaminated waste in that incinerator, they say, the technology exists to detect it. Lipsky explains that he wants to do a flyover of the plant and do infrared photography. Contaminated waste gives off heat. Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) will reveal whether there’s anything thermally hot.
There’s a hitch, though. Rocky Flats has guards under orders to shoot if necessary, and the plant is equipped with surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles. “I want a letter of immunity for me to take pictures of Rocky Flats,” Lipsky says. “Your office prosecutes activists all the time for trespassing over there. And it’s under the exact Atomic Energy Act section of trespass that you’re not allowed to take pictures. So I’ll be violating the law, and I want a letter of immunity.”
At first skeptical, Fimberg decides to support the investigation. Lipsky gets the letter. Lipsky, Smith, and Fimberg then bring their case before U.S. attorney Mike Norton. They’re not sure how he’ll respond. “If they’re burning plutonium out there,” Smith emphasizes, “we can catch them.”
Somewhat to their surprise, Norton gives them a green light. But he cautions that the investigation must proceed carefully. He has to seek approval from the Justice Department in Washington. The EPA is an independent agency, but the FBI falls under the Department of Justice.
The Justice Department approves.
The first flyover occurs in October when Building 771 is, according to court order, supposed to be closed. Then, on the dismally cold nights of December 9, 10, and 15, 1988, an FBI plane armed with an infrared heat-sensing camera flies directly over the plant. Jon Lipsky, Ken Fimberg, and another EPA agent are on board. Lipsky hates to fly, especially in puddle-jumpers, but he’s not thinking about that. They take photos of the Building 771 incinerator—shut down by court order until February 28—and other areas in and around the plant. “Look at that,” the EPA agent says, pointing to the monitor. The men can see white plumes rising from a smokestack and long white ribbons spreading out from the plant in lines, shapes, and swirls, as well as occasional white spots. White indicates thermal activity.
The photos are sent to an EPA laboratory for analysis. The results are dramatic. The photographs indicate that, contrary to statements by Rockwell and the DOE, the 771 incinerator is thermally active and likely in operation, burning radioactive waste. Further, the plant appears to be illegally discharging radioactive liquid waste into Woman Creek. Streaks of light splay out from the “spray fields” where contaminated waste is sprayed. Narrow white rays that stretch across Indiana Street and toward Great Western Reservoir seem to indicate the movement of radioactive material beyond plant boundaries.
Lipsky is shocked by the results. The heat signatures show the runoff fanning out just like a spiderweb. Capillaries spread down to Woman Creek and then to Standley Lake, which provides drinking water for nearby cities. Even on the coldest night of their flights, when it was just 7 degrees Fahrenheit, Rocky Flats was still spray-irrigating with radioactive waste.
Never before have two government agencies—the FBI and the EPA—planned to raid a third government agency, particularly one as powerful as the DOE. Lipsky and Smith begin to prepare the affidavit that will lead to a search warrant. On the morning of June 6, 1989, at 8:00 a.m. sharp, more than seventy-five FBI and EPA investigators are waiting outside the gates of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weaponry Facility as FBI agent Jon Lipsky, search warrant in hand, drives from the Denver courthouse to the foothills, green with spring, to meet them.
To read details of the FBI/EPA raid on Rocky Flats and how it leads to a shocking grand jury investigation – and eventually closes the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant – please consider a premium subscription to my twice-monthly newsletter. Thanks so much for reading! I welcome your comments.