Sarah Gilman

Assistant Editor

Back when the feds saw the West (and, by extension, its residents) as disposable, they detonated four massive nuclear bombs thousands of feet below the sage scrub hills of western Colorado in hopes of freeing trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. The first explosion, which took place near Rulison in 1969, was ruled a failure because (surprise surprise) it made the gas dangerously radioactive. Even so, the US Department of Energy went ahead and blew up three more bombs below the gas-rich Piceance Basin in 1973.

That sort of cavalier attitude drew fire from Manhattan Project scientist John Gofman, who called members of the nuclear establishment “the scoundrels of the Earth,” and noted that he “wouldn’t believe anything written by the Department of Defense or the Department of Energy.”

But these days, the energy department is a touch more leery of the Rulison bomb site. In early April, the department announced that it won’t support drilling for natural gas within a half-mile radius of the area, and will closely evaluate any drilling near that half-mile radius, according to the Grand Junction Sentinel. The department took the position even after an internal study last fall showed that drilling within 900 feet of the site has a 95 percent probability of NOT encountering radioactive gas.

Even so, as High Country News reported back in 2005, many nearby Garfield County residents worry that any drilling in the area could release radioactive gas into their air and water. And the state, despite a recent reorganization of its oil and gas commission to balance human and environmental concerns with gas extraction, isn’t helping.

Days after the US energy department’s position came forth, the state oil and gas commission announced that it will permit 11 new wells near the Rulison blast site, including one that is just over a half mile away from the site, reports the Sentinel. Meanwhile, Garfield County just released a slew of documents showing that a consultant and an adviser expressed concerns over a year ago that the half mile radius wasn’t big enough.

Geology professor Geoffrey Thyne wrote to the county in 2006 that wells drilled a half-mile away are likely to encounter radioactive gas from the blast. Tim Pinson, then the county’s oil and gas liaison, concluded that the half-mile standard probably is a mistake and suggested that the county consider calling for an additional 1,500-foot buffer.

All of the 11 approved wells will be drilled from a pad just more than a mile away but will reach underground to within seven-tenths to 1.1 miles away.

Meanwhile Noble Energy, which has been drilling near the Rulison site, claims numerous studies, including the energy department’s, show the area is safe.

Well if they say it, it must be true. And if the DOE wrote it down, all the better, right?

Sleep tight folks.