Ummm....yah...I'll think I'll pass.

Who knows what kind of three-eyed fish, and six-legged animals are out there.

Former Rocky Flats site gets EPA certification

'JEFFERSON COUNTY – The former site of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant will be open to the public sooner rather than later.

The EPA has certified the clean up at the site which means the land, which is 16 miles northwest of Denver along Highway 93, will be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That agency will open the land as a wildlife refuge.

Plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads were built at Rocky Flats for decades after it opened in 1951. While working there, thousands of employees say were exposed to radioactive material, giving them life threatening illnesses.

The hope is that, aside from a museum that will document the history of Rocky Flats, the site will have a new identity.

"The change has been really dramatic," said Steve Berendzen with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The gate that kept people out of Rocky Flats will not be there much longer and the barbed wire is coming down.

In the 1990s, the company that ran it, Rockwell International, pleaded guilty to discharging dangerous radioactive material into the land and water. It was shut down in 1991 and declared a federal Superfund site.

Cleanup efforts ignited protests and thousands of gallons of contaminants had to be taken away from the site.

Fourteen years and $7 billion later, the clean up has finished early and under budget.

"Long term, we hope for public use activities allowed in there that would include hiking trails, pubic visitation, wildlife watching and picture taking," said Berendzen.

Some argue the material from the nuclear plant is still a threat. LeRoy Moore is the author of a citizen's guide to Rocky Flats. He says "it is unwise and misleading for government agencies to call it safe and invite people to visit the land. That is not protecting people."

"The EPA has signed off on it being clean so we accept what EPA says," said Moore.

All that is needed now is the federal money to fund the refuge and the people to visit. No federal money has currently been designated for the refuge, but the hope is that will happen within two years.

There are 1,300 acres at Rocky Flats that will not come off the Superfund list. It is an area where a high concentration of radioactive material was used.

Thousands of former Rocky Flats workers are still hoping for medical compensation.

Tuesday, a Federal Panel recommended compensation for only a limited number of workers.

Congressmen Mark Udall (D-Colorado) and Ed Perlmutter (D-Colorado) sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services asking him to reject that recommendation. They want Mike Leavitt to approve compensation for 15,000 additional workers.

Republican Senator Wayne Allard says he was also disappointed with the panel's recommendation.'