Kristen Iversen, author of the new book, Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, spoke eloquently on NPR's Fresh Air about what led her to write the book. Part memoir and also an investigation, the book examines the decades-long environmental scandal involving nuclear contamination in and around Rocky Flats, a nuclear weapons production facility. Listen to the show here.
Iversen spent her childhood in Colorado, close to the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory, playing in fields and swimming in lakes and streams that it now appears were contaminated with plutonium. Weapons production ended at Rocky Flats in 1989 after FBI agents raided the plant. Its operators later pleaded guilty to criminal violations of environmental law.