{"id":1314486,"date":"2019-09-10T21:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T03:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/an-unqualified-failure\/"},"modified":"2019-09-10T21:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T03:32:00","slug":"an-unqualified-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/an-unqualified-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An unqualified failure\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"382\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/09\/Nukeexplosion-VDN-091119.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/09\/Nukeexplosion-VDN-091119.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/09\/Nukeexplosion-VDN-091119-300x185.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><figcaption><strong>Former Parachute mayor Judith Beasley describes how the ground rose &#8220;like a tidal wave&#8221; when the Project Rulison 40-kiloton nuclear test was detonated about 8 miles to the southeast on September 10, 1969. Beasley was teaching at the nearby Grand Valley School at the time, and she said that teachers and students at the K-12 school were evacuated before the underground blast was set off.<\/strong><br \/><em>Gretel Daugherty | Colorado Sun<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Long-time Parachute resident Judy Beasley has witnessed nearly all the failed attempts to wrench hydrocarbons from the dusty, high ridges and deep, desert valleys of the Piceance Basin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But they all pale in comparison to the stab taken on Sept. 10, 1969, when the United States government asked the 270 residents of Parachute to leave their homes during the day while scientists detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear bomb 7 miles away and 8,400 feet below an arid, windblown site called Rulison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The hope was the bomb \u2014 equivalent to 43,000 tons of TNT and larger than the one that devastated Hiroshima in World War II \u2014 would force commercially marketable quantities of natural gas from the fine-grained, low-permeability sandstone of the Williams Fork Formation of the Mesaverde Group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText EdNote\">Beasley, then an English teacher at the town\u2019s K-12 school, stood outside her home with some friends who came from nearby Rifle to witness the blast. Students got out at noon and by midafternoon, Beasley and her friends were standing around and getting ready for \u2026 nobody knew for sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Read more via <a id=\"N0x13550c0N0x127d0e0:N0x13550c0N0x147d728\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradosun.com\/2019\/09\/08\/50-years-ago-a-nuclear-bomb-was-detonated-under-the-western-slope-to-release-natural-gas-heres-how-poorly-it-went\/\">The Colorado Sun<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText EdNote\">The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported news organization dedicated to covering the people, places and policies that matter in Colorado. Read more, sign up for free newsletters and subscribe at coloradosun.com.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/news\/local\/an-unqualified-failure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Parachute mayor Judith Beasley describes how the ground rose &#8220;like a tidal wave&#8221; when the Project Rulison 40-kiloton nuclear test was detonated about 8 miles to the southeast on September 10, 1969. Beasley was teaching at the nearby Grand Valley School at the time, and she said that teachers and students at the K-12 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 06:44:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}