Extraction

overburden

Welcome to A People's Atlas of Nuclear Colorado

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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.
Center for Land Use Interpretation, Naturita Disposal Cell, 17 May 2012, CLUI Land Use Database
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Site

Naturita Disposal Site

By:

Nareg Kuyumjian

Between 1939 to 1963 the Naturita Processing Site, located 2 miles northwest of the city of Naturita in Montrose County, Colorado along the San Miguel River, intermittently processed vanadium and uranium ore. As a direct byproduct of ore processing, radioactive tailings covered 23 acres of the site and, being left unmanaged, went on to contaminate 126 acres of water, soil, and air resources on public and private lands. In 1993, the Department of Energy, as mandated by the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA), began remediation processes when it transported 783,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the site to the newly created Naturita Disposal Site, a 27-acre plot of land positioned 15 miles northwest of Naturita. The Disposal Site featured a 560 x 670-foot disposal cell walled off on three sides with sandstone bedrock and on the fourth side with low-permeability embankment. Notably, the multi-component cover of the cell was composed of a low permeability radon barrier, frost-protection layer of compacted soil, a bedding layer of coarse sand and gravel, and an erosion-protection layer known as a riprap. Together with its wall and cover composition, the cell was designed to securely store the radioactive waste for at least 200 and at most 1000 years. 

Sources

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management. “Naturita, Colorado, Processing and Disposal Sites” Fact Sheet. Energy.gov. July 7, 2022. Accessed January 13, 2023.

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management. “Naturita, Colorado, Disposal and Processing Sites.” Energy.gov. Accessed September 4, 2020.

Last Updated:

01/14/2023

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