Rulison Site corrective action report

Abstract

Project Rulison was a joint US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Austral Oil Company (Austral) experiment, conducted under the AEC`s Plowshare Program, to evaluate the feasibility of using a nuclear device to stimulate natural gas production in low-permeability gas-producing geologic formations. The experiment was conducted on September 10, 1969, and consisted of detonating a 40-kiloton nuclear device at a depth of 2,568 m below ground surface (BGS). This Corrective Action Report describes the cleanup of petroleum hydrocarbon- and heavy-metal-contaminated sediments from an old drilling effluent pond and characterization of the mud pits used during drilling of the R-EX well at the Rulison Site. The Rulison Site is located approximately 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Grand Junction, Colorado. The effluent pond was used for the storage of drilling mud during drilling of the emplacement hole for the 1969 gas stimulation test conducted by the AEC. This report also describes the activities performed to determine whether contamination is present in mud pits used during the drilling of well R-EX, the gas production well drilled at the site to evaluate the effectiveness of the detonation in stimulating gas production. The investigation activities described in this report were conducted during the autumn of 1995, concurrent with the cleanup of the drilling effluent pond. This report describes the activities performed during the soil investigation and provides the analytical results for the samples collected during that investigation