On May 17th, the Atomic Energy Commission, in conjunction with the CER Geonuclear Corporation, exploded three 30- kiloton nuclear devices beneath Rio Blanco County in northwest Colorado in an experiment designed to test the feasibility of releasing natural gas trapped below the earth's surface. Repercussions from the project, both figurative and literal, may extend into the distant future. Prior to the blast, numerous objections were raised during the public comment procedure under NEPA and in a hearing held by the Subcommittee on Public Lands of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, chaired by Senator Haskell of Colorado. The merits of the project were also argued in a lawsuit filed in state court by several environmental groups that challenged the grant of a permit by the Colorado Water Pollution Control Commission for the disposal of radioactive waste.¹

Project Rio Blanco is the last of three undergroud explosions comprising the first phase of a three-part program developed under the Plowshare Program, which seeks to find peaceful uses for nuclear explosives. The AEC claims that later phases will be undertaken only if Rio Blanco proves successful and if private industry remains interested in paying most of the costs. If undertaken, the second phase will involve 12 to 30 additional detonations testing the feasibility of further development. A third phase would require 60 to 300 nuclear explosions to create 20 to 60 producing wells, a number intended to justify the construction of a major gas pipeline into the area. Full development of these natural gas reserves would involve 400 to 1400 detonations throughout the Rocky Mountain region over a period of about 35 years. The AEC believes that there is approximately 300 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable gas in the area, and that if the experiments are successful, one tcf per year could be made available, a significant contribution to the present national gas consumption rate of almost 25 tcf per year.