The Passing of Chester McQueary: Chief Organizer who spearheaded the opposition to Project Rulison.
left to right: Nancy Fey, Melinda Dell Fitting, Chester McQueary, Rob Prince. We are standing in front of the site where, in September, 1969, the federal government and a private energy company detonated an underground nuclear blast called “Project Rulison”, literally fracking with nuclear weapons. We were protesters trying to stop the blast. In September 2019, the four of us returned to the site of the blast to commemorate our resistance to all nuclear weapons. We also held a public commemoration event nearby at which nearly 100 locals, many of whom were alive at the time of the blast, attended.
Chester: I send an eternal embrace from Nancy and myself to your magnificent spirit that will live forever in our hearts. We loved you Chester.
Chester McQueary, Gay, working class peace activist, died in a Ft. Collins yesterday (May 25, 2025).a victim of prostate cancer. Someone I don’t know sent a message to that effect to my blog this morning.
Chester is the second member of the “Project Rulison” group, who died in the past few weeks, who tried to stop an underground nuclear blast from being detonated on the northern side of the Grand Mesa in Western Colorado. The other death is of Melinda Dell Fitting who died in Maryland a few months ago, also a lifelong friend and godmother to our daughter, Molly Prince.
“Project Rulison” was – literally – fracking with nuclear weapons, a part of the Atoms for Peace Program, trying to give nuclear weapons a facelift – that they could be used for peaceful purposes. A number of test explosions were detonated in Northern New Mexico and in Colorado before the fracking with nuclear weapons program was finally killed by Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. Had it been implemented, a plan for fracking with nukes included detonating more than 200 underground nuclear weapons in the southern Wyoming coal fields.
There will be more articles, info on Chester’s extraordinary life and contribution to peace in the weeks and months ahead.
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View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 
CondolencesSent from my iPhone
Dear Chester, I’ve been looking to speak to you, but see I am too late. When we worked for the Quakers in Denver in the late 60’s, you were my hero. One of my favorite life memories is the Earth Day in 1970 when we presented the AEC with the Environmental Rapist of the Year at the celebration at the Denver Center. Your brilliant idea to have an awards ceremony was typical of your brilliant response to oppression of all kinds – powerful, well thought out and inspirational. Our guerilla theater performed at the “stolen” mic made the Denver audience stand up and cheer. You just led us up onto the empty (for the moment) stage. YOu calmly asked for the mic to be turned on, and then you outlined every environmental criminal’s activity in Colorado and when you announced the winner, my part was tohold up the award – a human skull.
The award ceremony will be offered again at the launching of my current book project in Occidental California at the Occidental Center for the Arts. Your brave life will be described and honored as a part of the launch along with pics of the Rulison site and a recounting of our effective and timely “award ceremony.” I wish we could have spoken but this note will have to be enough. Your mentorship will also be fondly remembered in my upcoming memoir “A Cup of Kindness.” Here’s one for you, best leader of people I have known in my 85 years.
Beverly Terman Riverwood – What a beautiful note. Thank you.