With the force of a small earthquake, three atomic bombs will explode next month beneath the Colorado surface. Set off simultaneously by the Atomic Energy Commission, they will release a combined explosive force of 60 kilotons. The underground spectacular is part of an ambitious program of at least 140 subterranean nuclear explosions that are designed to release some of the 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas far beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountain states. But the program faces heated opposition. Citizens, politicians and scientists all fear that the blasts will release not only natural gas but lethal radiation as well.
Project Rio Blanco, as the May blast is called, is actually the third in a series of "nuclear wells." It follows the 1967 Project Gasbuggy, a 26-kiloton explosion in New Mexico, and the 40-kiloton Project Rulison in Colorado in 1969. The AEC has claimed that both of these previous tests were successful, since they proved the feasibility of nuclear drilling.
But a recent study funded by the National Science Foundation examined Project Rulison from every angle—financial, social, environmental. Their finding: on all counts, the blast was a bust.
The researchers found that Rulison cost a total of $11 million but yielded gas that would be worth only $1.5 million—if it were uncontaminated and of high quality. Unfortunately, the gas released by Rulison is chemically inferior to gas from conventional wells in the same field and contains excessive amounts of radioactive byproducts like tritium. The cheapest way to correct those faults, the AEC says, would be to mix one unit of the contaminated Rulison gas with up to 50 units of high-quality nonradioactive gas. But to do so would require an abundance of uncontaminated natural gas, which is what the nuclear program was supposed to provide in the first place.
AEC officials insist that Rulison was worth the effort; it was an experiment conducted to refine the technique of nuclear drilling. As for radioactivity levels in the gas, the AEC says that improvements in bomb design will minimize the problem in future blasts. Those improvements would presumably be incorporated into both the Rio Blanco devices and Project Wagon Wheel, a five-bomb, 500-kiloton underground explosion scheduled to be set off in 1977.
Although the AEC'S assurance has not slowed the heated objections of environmentalists and local politicians, the chances of stopping the next two blasts are slim. But opponents are now trying to ensure that Wagon Wheel's five bombs sound the death rattle of the nuclear-drilling program. The idea of 140 more subterranean nuclear explosions is "absolutely out of the question," says U.S. Senator Floyd Haskell of Colorado, who along with others is concerned about triggering earthquakes. "I just don't know what would happen seismically after you've wracked the earth 140 times," says Thomas Ten Eyck, Colorado's Director of Natural Resources. In addition, Denver Geologist David Evans believes that the blasts would create subterranean radioactivity that would sooner or later seep into the Colorado River system—and contaminate the drinking water of 27 million people in seven states.