Jacob Brown FBB CHAPTER 2

        In this part of the memoir researcher after researcher claim to have found evidence of dangerous amounts of plutonium in the soil and water. Other research by Al Hazel, has shown that a criticality has occurred at Rocky Flats. However, the government kept telling residents that, contrary to the scientific evidence, the amount of radiation is not a danger to the community. Some members of the community are not buying it, but the majority of the people around Rocky Flats believe what they are being told. Many people in the community just trust that the government would not let them stay in harms way despite the amount of scientific evidence provided that dispute what the government is saying. It makes me wonder if the people were just so unaware and misinformed about Rocky Flats or were they just completely ignorant and in denial. Kristin mentions that reports about Rocky Flats were made in the paper and that statements about safety had been made by Dow Chemical. Did no one in the neighborhood read them and talk about it to their neighbors? After one scientist made a report to the city counsel about high plutonium levels near a planned building site, shouldn't the city leaders have been worried even slightly? At least one worried enough to do dig around and find the other scientific reports that were made less public. Shouldn't there have been a larger outcry directed towards the plant after a shocking number of citizens got cancer? Sure there were protests, but a large number were anti-war protests, not people protesting the pollution. Where the people surrounding Rocky Flats that unaware of what was going on, or was it denial. Perhaps talking about the plant and the possible harm it was doing was taboo. Maybe it was just like Kristen's household. Kristen's family never talked about her dads bottles and people never talked about the harm Rocky Flats was seemingly doing to environment. It's like that rule of never taking politics or religion in business or at the dinner table; in Kristin's community the didn't talk about politics, religion, or Rocky Flats.