Countryside

Open countryside looking NW showing front range of rocky mountains. Just over the plateau ridge before the foothills (thus not visible) is Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Facility. They've been cleaning up the plutonium for decades and have decades more work ahead of them. We like to joke that there is no need for streetlamps here because the ground simply glows in the dark. I have heard there is a thin layer of plutonium oxide about 18 inches below the surface from accidental plutonium fires at the plant back in the 1950's.

Update: Astonishing practically everyone, DOE announced that Rocky Flats cleanup is complete. More astonishing:

The cleanup project was estimated in the early 1990s to take at least 70 years and cost more than $37 billion. The final price tag was $7 billion and it was finished 56 years ahead of schedule.

So I don't know whether hearty applause is in order for getting things done so much faster and more cost-effectively, or whether the original project architects should be taken out and flogged for having grossly overstated the time and materials costs. (But, being in the software biz for over a quarter-century, I can think of only two projects I've worked on that came within 15% of target. But still, 70 years becoming 12 and $37 billion becoming $7 billion? I'd have thought someone could have scoped the project a little tighter than that.)