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Just Trust the Government

Below: The Bison Jam at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I took what was supposed to be a relaxing day in an urban wildlife refuge. Instead, we went tripping down a dystopian memory lane.

My childhood home sits a few miles downwind from the old Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Denver, Colorado. I don’t remember being explicitly warned to not go there. But rumors of sheep dying from escaping clouds of mustard gas and bombs exploding willy nilly kept everyone I knew away from the sprawling US Army complex. Even as teens seeking dark, secluded areas for certain activities, we steered clear of those scary grounds.

At the time, the government denied the horrific rumors. But every now and again, our house would shake. My dad would shrug his shoulders and say, “Not an earthquake. It’s probably the Arsenal testing a bomb.”

But all that’s in the past now. The government has cleaned up all the toxic chemicals that were spilled at the Arsenal! The water onsite is so pure, the soil so healthy, that bison thrive where the Army once disposed of nerve gas! Such a good job they did, it’s now perfectly safe for everyone!

So safe, in fact, the land is now the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. The government says we can trust them that the land is safe for wildlife and humans. Affluent neighborhoods now abut the refuge. The elegant stadium at Dicks Sporting Goods Park is visible to the west.

What could possibly go wrong when you have a trustworthy government?

When I visited the site recently, I should have used the bathroom at the Visitors Center and exited without exploring the displays about the Arsenal’s heyday. I learned that the Arsenal was more horrendous than any of us knew back in the Cold War years.

The displays were packed with “Trust the Government” stories. Over 200 farms and ranches were confiscated in the early 1940’s to build the arsenal. The families had six weeks to evacuate. The government promised compensation for the land, which the ranchers and farmers didn’t receive for months.

One small display mentioned Paleolithic people lived in the area, but to my disappointment, there wasn’t one display regarding contemporary indigenous peoples. Here’s a “Trust the Government” story about them that I know: The Arapaho people were promised that land (their land) via a treaty in 1851. Then when gold was found in Denver a couple of years later, they were moved to Sand Creek in southern Colorado. There, in 1864, the US Army massacred 200 women and children.

Back to the displays. Here’s a fun fact they mentioned: the Arsenal manufactured and stored hundreds of thousands of gallons of sarin, a highly toxic nerve gas. How comforted did I feel to know that?

Besides thousands of bombs, the Arsenal also manufactured napalm, America’s chemical weapon of choice in Viet Nam. I was drawn to a photo of a woman in a plaid skirt, white blouse, and stylish pumps. The camera captured her from the side as she stood at a counter, looking down at something in her hands. The accompanying plaque said she was measuring the viscosity of napalm. She wore no safety goggles, no gloves, not even a lab coat. Yay, women in science.

Another “I laughed until I cried” display featured a gigantic black rotary desk phone. The plaque beside it proclaimed the phone was “explosion proof” so that the employees could call for help in case the building blew up.

“As if anybody would survive,” my husband whispered.

“And their flesh wasn’t melting off their bones,” I added.

The displays promised that the government has cleaned up all the bad stuff. Soil was scraped down 10’ and removed. (What did they do with it?) Water was filtered. Now, the Arsenal is virtually pristine.

We then drove the 11-mile self-guided nature tour to see the two hundred plus herd of bison that prospers at the Arsenal cum Refuge. At first, the tour took us through acres of freshly charred earth, courtesy of recent wildfire-mitigation burns. The acrid smell reminded us yet again of the catastrophic destruction that had been so close at hand.

Finally, the bison came into view.

The huge, placid beauties filled field after field. As we waited for a bison jam to clear the road, my husband spied three mule deer hunkered down in the long, dry grass under a bare-limbed cottonwood. We laughed as a smaller bison, maybe a yearling, rolled over and over in the dry grass, enjoying a dust bath.

The bison blocking the road finally moved on and so did we. Further on the tour, brown metal vents rising a foot or two off the ground dotted the late-winter fields. Off in the distance, we spotted a large, smooth mound covered in dry prairie grasses. It looked artificial and we speculated as to what they had buried beneath it.

The sign at the gate announces the refuge closes at dark. Maybe they close at sunset to keep out teens looking for places to be naughty.

Wouldn’t it be something, though, if they close at dark because the deer and the bison glow and they don’t want us to know?

I guess we must trust the government that no wildlife fluoresces at the refuge. We can but hope.