After weeks of effort, I finally get permission to tour the
Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, although the wildlife
agency asks that I not bring McKinley along, because of what
spokesman Matt Kales called his penchant for "media
sensationalism." I go instead with wildlife managers Steve
Berendzen and Bruce Hastings. Berendzen is thin and clean-cut;
Hastings has a graying beard and softer edges. They drive me
past a churning gravel plant and onto the refuge. We first head
north, winding into a drainage that hides a decaying ranch house
and a historic barn purchased and abandoned by the Atomic Energy
Commission when Rocky Flats was originally built. A pond is iced
over with the morning's frost. As we approach, a coyote sprints
between two mule deer bucks stalking a beleaguered doe, then
darts past a gnarled cottonwood and up a steep slope.  Berendzen
and Hastings are biologists, far more adept at identifying
wildlife than assessing nuclear cleanups. As we wind up and down
the steep gullies flanking the site