Remembering Chester McQueary and Melinda Dell Fitting: Keeping Project Rulison’s Memory Alive
Chester McQueary – September 10, 2019
On September 10, 1969 on a remote spot on the north side of Grand Mesa in a town – actually not even a village – called Rulison between Rifle and Grand Junction just s. of I-70, the Department of Energy, in its usual lack of wisdom and in conjunction with a Texas energy company whose name I have forgotten, detonated an underground nuclear bomb in an effort to create an underground cavity into which natural gas would flow. That gas would be sold commercially. At least that was the plan.
Fracking with nuclear weapons. That is what it was, plain and simple. Project Rulison was a test blast – one of three, the first in nw New Mexico, then Project Rulison, and then a third referred to as “Rio Blanco” also in Colorado on a deserted road between Rifle and Meeker. The stated goal of these blasts was to denotate more than 200 nukes in the coal fields of southern Wyoming, but the plans were, mercifully, killed by Jimmy Carter in 1979, during his presidency.
There was an effort from the then peace movement in Colorado to get the blast cancelled. It included a group of (mostly) students from the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, and some folk on the Auraria Campus in Denver, to stop the blast. That effort was spearheaded by two people – Chester McQueary, a working-class gay beekeeper and one Margaret Puls who hailed from Salida Colorado, a long time friend with whom I lost track.
Although there were 30-40 of us that engaged in the protest within a mile of ground zero, given the indefinite timeframe of the blast, only two protesters were at the sight when the blast occurred (on the date above). One was Chester, the other was one Melinda Dell Fitting, both of whom survived the blast but were lifted off the ground from the shaking earth it triggered.
Fifty years later, on September 10, 2019, four of us who participated in the Project Rulison protest went back to the site of the blast to commemorate our effort to stop it. We also held one of the most interesting meetings I have ever attended with members of the surrounding communities who were present at the time. Over the years that followed Chester, and I did what we could to keep the memory of Project Rulison – and our resistance to the project – alive. I so enjoyed working with him on this.
Last month, within days of one another, Chester McQueary and Melinda Dell Fitting died, Chester in Ft. Collins of prostate cancer and Melinda Dell seemingly of some kind of stroke outside of Baltimore. In honor of them both, and with those who might be interested, it is my goal in the years left me to me, to keep the memories of Chester McQueary and Melinda Dell Fitting alive.
I can do no less for the memory of these lifelong friends – campaneros and campaneras – and of Project Rulison. Should you want to join me in this project, let me know.
Melinda Dell Fitting holding Molly Prince. She was Molly’s god mother
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 