Drilling by nuke site OK’d

Posted by egable on September 20th, 2007 filed in Energy development

The Department of Energy has come back with its verdict on drilling near the Project Rulison underground nuclear test site. According to the feds, everything should be hunky-dorey as long as the oil and gas companies stay outside the three-mile radius of the blast site. The Glenwood Springs Post Independent reports there’s only a 5 percent chance of contamination by a key radioactive isotope at a hypothetical well site just outside the drilling exclusion area.

Not surprisingly, local residents did not find DOE’s conclusions very reassuring. “This is a mathematical modeling only and doesn’t actually reflect what is happening underground. The uncertainties are there and the danger that drilling poses probably outweighs what a mathematical projection would show,” Patrick Barker told the Post Independent.