The protestors
When
Coloradans found out about 'Project Rulison,' not many were too pleased with the
idea of a nuclear blast in their backyard. Concerned activists came together
with
grassroots groups and state chapters of national organizations - including the
Colorado Committee for Environmental Information, the ACLU and the Open Spaces
Coordination Council - to file a lawsuit to force an injunction to stop the test in a Denver federal court.
The lawsuits claimed that the blast would threaten the safety of locals and possibly
contaminate water supplies and residents' air. Testimony
in a federal court hearing came from experts such as Denver geologist David E. Evans who proposed that [the
atomic blast from] Rulison could trigger major
earthquakes. Evans presented his theory that waste that
was injected into a 2-mile-deep well in the Rocky Mountain Arsenal had caused
Denver-area earthquakes; he qualified that Rulison's risk for tremors was
not probable but an 'unnecessary risk.'
Another geologist testified that
the explosion could force radioactive materials into underground water draining
into the Colorado River System, affecting communities and cities all the way to
Los Angeles. (Another threat of Rulison, although barely mentioned in
the press, was the possibility that it could have vented, like the 'Baneberry'
accident at the Nevada Test Site in 1970, releasing significant amounts of
radiation into the atmosphere.)
The
Rulison test was initially planned for May 22nd, 1969, then delayed to September 4th over safety reasons (the
possible damage to a local dam was considered) and
a
lawsuit that was filed in a Denver federal court. That suit was dismissed on August
27, 1969, and upheld on September 2nd, 1969, by the 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals. A last-minute appeal by the conservation
groups to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected by Justice Thurgood
Marshall, who refused to overturn the lower court's decision. Simultaneously,
another lawsuit had been filed in early September by the Open Spaces
Coordination Council in a Colorado district court in Glenwood Springs.
Protest
within legal channels wasn't the only method used by the Rulison
opposition. There was an unsuccessful petition and letter (and telegram)-writing
campaign to get Colorado Governor John A. Love to stop the test and also
an unsuccessful telegram plea to President
Nixon by Rep. Frank Evans (D-Colo.) to order "at least a temporary halt in the
firing" so more studies could
be rendered.
A last
ditch activist effort came in the form of an on-site sit-in protest by members
of such groups as Citizens Concerned About Rulison, Students for a Democratic
Society and People United to Reclaim the Environment (PURE).
More than one week prior to the blast date protestors in five groups
scattered into the wilderness near the test site, hoping their presence would
encourage others to take a stand against the nuclear test. The protestors felt that their presence
had something to do with a 'weather' delay that postponed the
test from Sept. 4 to Sept 10, 1969.
The protestors declined to tell reporters where they were camped,
and noted to the press that their camps
were camouflaged. Rob Prince, one of the protestors, told The
Colorado Independent in a 2007 interview:
"There were federal agents in helicopters and
bull horns flying around us calling on us to leave, but that was about it. They
never landed (to my knowledge) and never actively tried to clear us from the
spot where we were camped. We did break up
into small groups with the idea that if we did, the federal agents would get
some, but not all of us, but nothing came of that."
A
spokesperson for CER Geonuclear told the AP a few days before the Sept. 10th
test: "We don't know where the protestors are, but we know where they
aren't. They aren't close to the site."
Helicopters and law
enforcement patrolled the area in case protestors got near the site. (Read
part
II of the interview with Prince, who blogged
extensively in 2007
on Rulison and on the DOE's lack of transparency of the information and data in
its possession on Rulison contamination).1
On September 10,
1969, the actual date of the Rulison test, parts of nearby
Interstate-70 were closed, as were some local schools. Residents within a
few miles of the ground-zero were asked to evacuate for the day and those who
left - not all did - were compensated for leaving.
The blast site
was a location (map)
eight miles southeast of the town
of Grand Valley in Garfield County, about 150 miles west of Denver. (Coordinates:
39.40566,
-107.948631, aerial
map, close-up).
The atomic blast was set off at 4 p.m. EDT.
As
described in the book 'Nuclear Witnesses, Nuclear Insiders' (by Leslie J.
Freeman, 1982): 'The test proceeded on schedule, throwing some of the
demonstrators up into the air.' The 5.5-magnitude earthquake from the blast threw one group of about 25 protestors about half-a-foot into the air.
The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the federal agency behind the test, stated that no
radioactivity escaped accidentally during the underground blast.
'Welcome
to Colorado: AEC's Playground' was depicted on a popular bumper sticker in
Colorado in the years following the test.
Low-tritium
strategy backfires
Rulison's
bomb yield, of 43 kilotons, was three times the yield of the Hiroshima blast,
larger than the combined yield of New Mexico Plowshare tests (in 1961 and 1967). Rulison
even surpassed the average yield of above-ground tests at the Nevada Test Site
from 1951 to 1962. Project Rulison "produced a shock wave that damaged the
foundations of buildings, irrigation lines, mines and an industrial plant."
(Freeman).
The
AEC's Plowshare Project's scientists planned such a large yield atomic blast in order to reduce
the amount of radioactive tritium, which had plagued a previous New Mexico gas
stimulation test also under the Plowshare Program. But the 1969 atom blast in Colorado, which had stimulated less gas than expected, produced a lot more tritium than
expected. Although the Rulison experiment succeeded in freeing the
'trapped' natural gas, because of the
radioactive contamination it was unsuitable for sale.
So, what happened to all that
radioactive gas? DOE documents state that Rulison
was accompanied by an 'operational release of radioactivity detected offsite.'
(DOE/NV-209). What that means is twofold: First, some radioactive
gases escaped right after the test into Colorado's air when samples were
collected. Second, the 'fouled product,' the contaminated natural
gas was 'flared.' Flare is a fancy term for burning it
into the air.
On
three occasions over a 10 month period in 1970 and 1971, the DOE flared
about 455 million cubic feet of radioactively contaminated gases into
Colorado's atmosphere where it 'dissipated.' (Note: dilution is not a
solution to pollution.) Radioactive
gases from the flaring were detected up to 50 miles from the Rulison blast
site.
Coloradans protested these flaring actions over
concerns that their exposure to the radiation could increase their cancer risk.
An activist's lawsuit asserted in 1969 that any plan by the AEC to flare off the
'atomic gas' would cause radioactive elements to "collect in consumable food and
water, and eventually cause infant mortality
in a scientifically measurable ratio to the
amount of krypton-85 and tritium released." (These are two
common radioactive gases also associated with emissions from nuclear power plants.) Environmental groups
had filed an
injunction to prevent re-entry into the test cavity and stop these flaring actions
but that injunction was
denied; the District Court judge found that the
flaring would not 'present a danger to life, health or property,' however the
court retained jurisdiction (more on jurisdiction below).
Why did the AEC flare off gas into
Colorado's air? Why did they declare it to be 'safe' when it was
determined that the gas was too radioactive for use in peoples' homes? (It must be assumed that some of
the radiation entered the food supply.)
Imagine you're in your kitchen, addressing mid-day hunger pangs with that
good-but-quick pasta dish you like to make, and make pretty well! You walk over to your reliable four-burner gas-stove and light the
front-right burner. Hissssss.... click..click...click...pfummm.
You place a shiny two-quart sauce-pan half-filled with your favorite pasta
sauce on the burner and slowly stir the chunky tomato goodness with a long
wooden spoon. Breathe in the savory spice-filled aroma! Yummmm! 
