**Partnership for Public Service**

**Mr. Clean**

Some people said cleaning up the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility
couldn't be done. Frazer Lockhart and his team not only proved the
skeptics wrong, they proved the skeptics wrong ahead of schedule and
under budget.

The federal government created the Superfund program in 1980 to clean up
the country's most dangerous abandoned toxic waste sites. Out of the
hundreds of environmental hazards on  the Superfund list, the Rocky
Flats plant outside of Denver, Colorado was among the worst of the
worst. Rocky Flats was a nuclear weapons production facility that
manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads for nearly 40
years. In 1989, it was shut down after a raid by the FBI and EPA
discovered multiple pollution violations. Some people suggested that
Rocky Flats should be a "sacrifice site," meaning cleanup was impossible
and should not even be attempted. As recently as 1995, a cleanup effort
was estimated to cost \$37 billion and take 70 years to

complete. Frazer Lockhart and his team at the Department of Energy
managed to prove the skeptics wrong. Working with contractors, local
officials and his federal colleagues, Lockhart led the effort to
successfully remediate Rocky Flats in just 10 years, at a cost of \$7
billion.

If the fact that the project was completed decades ahead of schedule and
billions of dollars under budget were not astounding enough, consider
the following. According to the Department of Energy, the cleanup team
removed more than 21 tons of weapons-usable nuclear materials;
decontaminated and demolished 800 structures, comprising more than 3
million square feet; drained 30,000 liters of plutonium solution;
stabilized and packaged 100 tons of high-content plutonium residue;
performed environmental cleanup actions at 130 sites; dispositioned
millions of classified items and excess property; and safely shipped
more than 600,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste to a safe disposal
site --- enough to fill a string of railcars 90 miles long.

The project was the largest and most successful cleanup ever conducted
by the Department of Energy, and Lockhart recently received EPA approval
for over 95% of the formerly restricted land to be officially removed
from the Superfund list. The majority of the 6,200-acre site is

scheduled to be transferred to the Department of the Interior and will
become a national wildlife refuge.

There were many keys to the success of the project. The first was
collaboration between federal officials and local authorities and
residents. Due to the history of problems at Rocky Flats, Lockhart and
his team had to go the extra mile to rebuild trust within the
surrounding communities. They were completely transparent in their
dealings, sharing both good news and bad. Lockhart said the trust that
was built was invaluable when it came to tackling the tough issues.

Another key was the innovative contract and contract management. DOE
contracted with Kaiser-Hill, LLC to do the vast majority of the cleanup
work. Lockhart structured an incentive-laden contract that said the
contractors would receive a significant fraction of any savings that
resulted from their doing a good job.

Not surprisingly, the Rocky Flats project has already received a great
deal of recognition. The American Council of Engineering Companies named
the project its Grand Award winner in the environmental category. The
American Academy of Environmental Engineers named

it Project of the Year, as did the Project Management Institute. It also
received the 2006 Secretary of Energy's Project Management Improvement
Award. It has also been the subject of numerous papers and even books.

In the end, perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the Rocky Flats
cleanup project is that it shows what is possible with collaboration
between the public, private and nonprofit sectors. If they can come
together to convert this environmental eyesore and security risk into a
wildlife refuge, converting a public liability into a community asset,
it proves that we can overcome any environmental challenge if local
communities, businesses and government work together.