The U.S. Department of Energy plans to digitally copy, then destroy 500 boxes of documents related to the former Rocky Flats nuclear- weapons plant, prompting vigorous objections from a local coalition and two Colorado congressmen.

The decision is "extremely troubling," U.S. Reps. Mark Udall and Ed Perlmutter said in a recent letter to the DOE Office of Legacy Management.

"These documents, which have been part of the public record for years, are critical to understanding the history of Rocky Flats and cleanup activities and should be preserved," the congressmen said.

The Rocky Flats Stewardship Council, which provides local government and community oversight of Rocky Flats since the plant closed in 1989, also expressed "deep concern" about the decision.

Despite repeated requests, "DOE has yet to specify in writing the legal and regulatory basis for destroying these documents," council chairwoman Lorraine Anderson wrote in a May 5 letter to the department.

Phone and e-mail messages seeking comment from the Office of Legacy Management were not returned.

At issue are documents not in the formal administrative record, which outlines the plant's $7 billion cleanup, completed in 2005.

Until September, the documents were housed at the Front Range Community College library. Gary Morrell, librarian for the Rocky Flats Reading Room at Front Range, said the documents include community studies, state health records, geologic information, aerial radiological surveys, monitoring data, and accident and incident reports.

"Some of the documents probably don't exist anywhere else," Morrell said, adding that a "great deal of the material doesn't have much to do with Rocky Flats as a nuclear-weapons plant."

Visitors to the reading room have included DOE lawyers, which Morrell said could indicate that the information isn't available elsewhere; scientists investigating a fault line under the plant; and former workers trying to build cases for illness compensation.

DOE officials planned to give the documents to the archives at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which has numerous Rocky Flats documents. But late last year, the department discovered personal information — including Social Security numbers — on a few documents and declared that all the boxes posed a risk of identity theft.

Morrell believes the offending documents are limited and could be easily narrowed.

The DOE has plans to make electronic copies available on the Internet, but archivists, the congressmen and the council argue that electronic formats change and paper files are permanent records.

Keeping the documents in one Colorado location will make research more convenient for scholars, public officials and the public, said CU archivist Bruce Montgomery.

The DOE's decision comes, Democrats Udall and Perlmutter noted, as former workers try to gather information needed to link illnesses with work-related exposures at the plant northwest of Denver.

"Not having this information available in Colorado in a publicly accessible format will make it conceivably more difficult for workers doing research on their cases for compensation," said Jennifer Thompson, a 14-year Rocky Flats worker who led last year's effort to gain compensation and health benefits for sick former plant workers.

David Abelson, executive director of the stewardship council, said that while the situation is frustrating, "I also think it's totally resolvable."