A New Wildlife Refuge On The Grounds Around An Old Nuclear Weapons Plant

The Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge sits on more than 5,000 acres of trees, wetlands and pristine rolling prairie about 16 miles northwest of Denver. It hosts 239 migratory and resident species, from falcons and elk to the threatened Preble's meadow jumping mouse. It also used to be the site of a federal nuclear weapons facility — and it's reopening to the public this weekend. From 1952 to 1989, a small community lay inside the borders of the modern-day refuge, creating plutonium "pits" — grapefruit-sized spheres used as triggers for the country's thermonuclear weapons. Rocky Flats closed with the end of the Cold War, and federal and state agencies oversaw a more than $7 billion demolition and cleanup of the area.