Welcome to A People's Atlas of Nuclear Colorado
To experience the full richness of the Atlas, please view on desktop.
Navigating the Atlas
You may browse the Atlas by following the curated "paths" of information and interpretation provided by the editors. These paths roughly track the movement of radioactive materials from the earth, into weapons or energy sources, and then into unmanageable waste—along with the environmental, social, technical, and ethical ramifications of these processes. In addition to the stages of the production process, you may view in sequence the positivist, technocratic version of this story, or the often hidden or repressed shadow side to the industrial processing of nuclear materials.
Using the buttons on the left, you may also browse the Atlas's artworks and scholarly essays, access geolocated material on a map, and learn more about contributors to the project.
If you would like to contribute materials to the Atlas, please reach out to the editors: Sarah Kanouse (s.kanouse at northeastern.edu) and Shiloh Krupar (srk34 at georgetown.edu).
Cover Image by Shanna Merola, "An Invisible Yet Highly Energetic Form of Light," from Nuclear Winter.
Atlas design by Byse.
Funded by grants from Georgetown University and Northeastern University. Initial release September 2021.
Using the buttons on the left, you may also browse the Atlas's artworks and scholarly essays, access geolocated material on a map, and learn more about contributors to the project.
If you would like to contribute materials to the Atlas, please reach out to the editors: Sarah Kanouse (s.kanouse at northeastern.edu) and Shiloh Krupar (srk34 at georgetown.edu).
Cover Image by Shanna Merola, "An Invisible Yet Highly Energetic Form of Light," from Nuclear Winter.
Atlas design by Byse.
Funded by grants from Georgetown University and Northeastern University. Initial release September 2021.
Sarah Kanouse, Monitoring field at the former Rifle Processing Faciility, Flickr
Site
Rifle Processing Sites
Two former uranium and vanadium processing sites operated by Union Carbide are located near the city of Rifle, Colorado. The New Rifle Site operated from 1958-1985. The Old Rifle Site operated from 1924-1958, when it transferred and reprocessed most of its mill tailings at the New Rifle Site. Colorado acquired these sites in 1988 and commenced remediation by removing radioactive tailings and transferring them to a disposal cell 6 miles north of the site. From 2008 to 2010, the City of Rifle built a wastewater treatment facility on the site, which derives 60 percent of its power from solar panels. Alluvial groundwater surrounding the Rifle Processing Sites still holds elevated levels of nitrate, uranium, and molybdenum, some of which has migrated to sites owned by the Umetco Minerals Corporation.
Sources
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management. "Rifle, Colorado, Disposal and Processing Sites" Fact Sheet. May 2020. Accessed July 31, 2020.Loading...
Continue on "Uranium Mill Sites in Colorado"