Like many people i know the landscape south of boulder colorado well the landscape where rocky flats nuclear weapons factory was once so well hidden from th. Full body burden is a haunting work of narrative nonfiction about a young woman kristen iversen growing up in a small colorado town close to rocky flats a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated the most contaminated site in america its the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the cold war in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and unkno. Full body burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the cold war in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and unknown to those who lived there tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium its also a book about the destructive power of secrets both family and government her fathers hidden liquor bottles the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood the truth about what was made at rocky flats best not to inquire too deeply into any of . Dr kristen iversens full body burden growing up in the shadow of rocky flats shows what it was like to live near a nuclear weapons facility not an electrical power plant but a reckless careless unsafe hazardous nuclear weapons plant within 16 miles of denver that made 70000 plutonium pits for nuclear tests for 37 years during the cold war without much public knowledge. Plutonium lies in various stages of disarray and there is no safe permanent storage site for radioactive waste the doe projects that it will take at least until 2065 and cost american taxpayers more than 40 billion to marginally clean up the nuclear waste at rocky flats a doe official comments to the senate armed services committee that some weapons plants like rocky flats may never be