Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2015 [1].

Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant

Nominator(s): VQuakr (talk) 17:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about releases of radioactive material from the Rocky Flats Plant, a cold-war era nuclear weapons manufacturing plant near Denver. As suburban development has sprawled closer to this once-remote site, the extent and persistence of this contamination has been debated (particularly online) with increased vigor and a great deal of inaccuracy both from environmental activists and housing developers. This article cites the best sources available to accurately describe the reality of the plant's legacy. VQuakr (talk) 17:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Driveby comment: It doesn't look like this has been edited substantially (other than maintenance) in over two years. What efforts have been made to ensure it is still current? I spotted several statements in the article indicating a current state (for example, "The Department of Energy continues to fund monitoring of the site", citing sources with a retrieval date of 2011) but I'm not confident that all these things still apply and that nothing new has been published in the last two years. The article ends with "Since 2013, opposition has focused on the Candelas development located along the southern border of the former Plant site." which is not sourced at all. It doesn't look like this has been carefully prepared. --Laser brain (talk) 00:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage

Laser brain's concerns are well-founded. A statement that protests "have continued", for example, is cited to 1999 and 2007 sources. However, the lack of attention to recent sources is not the only flaw:

Substantial topic domains are entirely absent. Specifically, there's essentially zero information about remediation practices here (other than stream diversion), despite a litany of literature on the topic. Just as a one-off example, experimental consideration of ceramic as a binding method of radioactive dust and ash at Rocky Flats should be covered here; it is an important topic in nuclear waste management in general.
I can't come to FAC without looking at references and reference formatting, but I decline to do my typical thorough walkthrough of the sources here. There are inconsistent date formats, inconsistent patterning of web sources, missing bibliographic information, ISBN problems, bare links as references (see #68, 71), and dead links.
It is my general belief that this article, as written, does not represent a neutral point of view on the subject. Yes, there have been bad actions on the part of the government associated with this location and its past events, but the article downplays scientific analyses showing low risk and over-emphasizes citizen concerns on what is fundamentally a scientific topic. The absence of any content describing the remediation process certainly contributes to that impression, but it is not alone in doing so. For example, the "Reporting of contamination" section is generally worded in a manner that suggests contamination remains a danger, and elides a number of studies that have demonstrated precisely that. It does cite a 2012 deer tissue study (whose conclusion notes the "extremely low levels of actinides present in ungulate tissues"), but does so in a manner that can easily be misread to imply the opposite, by burying the conclusion at the end of a paragraph filled with numeric data and "increased cancer risk". I'm not at all confident that the anonymously-authored Environmental News Service sources used to support claims of contamination in 2010 that "certainly endangered ... health" is a reliable source in this context; it certainly does not constitute a medical reliable source, and it provides no link to more detailed scientific analyses to support its claims (indeed, elsewhere in the article, it cites an anonymous poster on a local newspaper website!).

It's my considered belief that remedying the problems of this article is substantially impossible within the FA window. Accordingly, I oppose promotion on 1b, 1c, 1d, and 2c grounds. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest withdrawal—in addition to problems noted above, there are at least seven dead links and a few other problematic ones, improper inline citation formatting and largely inconsistent reference formatting. Multiple examples of citation overkill lie throughout and a few statements are not sourced, such as this one in the Legacy section, "The substantially contaminated 'Central Operable Unit' (COU) land area of Rocky Flats remains under DOE control, and is now surrounded by the refuge." I'm very sorry, VQuakr, but this does not meet the FA criteria and will need a considerable amount of effort before it does. The Wikipedian Penguin 01:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of good feedback here; thanks everyone for the comments! Wikipedian Penguin, is there anything specific I need to do to withdraw? VQuakr (talk) 07:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@VQuakr: I will take care of it. This page will remain available after archiving so you can capture the feedback. --Laser brain (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.