Wayne Allard: “I will take a little time to lay out the history of the cleanup of Rocky Flats after it was decided to close the…”

“I will take a little time to lay out the history of the cleanup of Rocky Flats after it was decided to close the facility. It was a nuclear production facility that produced plutonium triggers which were used for nuclear weaponry. When I first got involved in this issue, the plan called for 60 years to clean up Rocky Flats, costing somewhere around $35 billion. In 1999, we were able to reach an agreement with the Department of Energy and the contractor that for $7 billion, we could have it cleaned up in 6 years. So here we are in 2005 and we have cleaned up the facility 14 months ahead of what anybody ever imagined. When we first came up, everybody was snickering and saying that would not happen. But we did a key thing; we put incentives in the contract which encouraged various members of the workforce, including the contractors, to get the job done on time. In this case they got it done ahead of time and ended up saving lots of money. This means we are cleaned up 14 months ahead of time. That means probably close to $500 to $600 million in savings because we are not going to have to pay for it next year. As a result of this early cleanup we are going to have about 70 workers out at Rocky Flats who are going to get cut short on their health insurance benefits and cut short on their life insurance. It is very difficult to try to get insurance after you have been working around a nuclear facility for 15, 16, 17, or 18 years.…”