Free Republic

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court left an 81-year-old retired engineer without a penny to show for his role in exposing fraud at a former nuclear weapons plant in a ruling that makes it harder for whistle-blowers to claim cash rewards. James Stone stood to collect up to $1 million from a lawsuit he filed in 1989 against Rockwell International, now part of aerospace giant Boeing Co., over problems with environmental cleanup at the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver. A court eventually ordered Rockwell to pay the government nearly $4.2 million for false claims the company submitted....

Kaiser-Hill Co. officials on Thursday said they have completed the $7 billion Rocky Flats cleanup - a major milestone in the former nuclear- trigger plant's transformation into a public wildlife refuge. The cleanup is the largest completed on a U.S. Department of Energy or federal Superfund toxic-waste site, project managers said. More than 21 tons of weapons- grade nuclear material was removed, enough radioactive waste to fill a string of rail cars 90 miles long.

DENVER (AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday endorsed hiking, hunting and other public use of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant after it is cleaned up and converted to a wildlife refuge. The agency released its draft management plan and environmental impact statement for the 6,240-acre site outside Denver where the government once made plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads. The plan outlines uses for the site after the $7 billion cleanup, scheduled to be complete in 2006. The agency's preferred option includes hiking, cycling, horseback riding and some hunting. It includes about 16 miles of...

GOLDEN, Colo. -- In a milestone for the $7 billion cleanup at Rocky Flats, crews have finished removing more than 12 tons of weapons-grade plutonium from the former nuclear weapons site, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Tuesday. The 6,000-acre site (pictured, left) 15 miles northwest of Denver is slated to become a national wildlife refuge after the cleanup project ends in 2006. "Rocky Flats helped the United States win the Cold War and it is no longer in the nuclear weapons business," Abraham said in a statement issued in Washington. The removal of the plutonium from the site was finished...