The head of the state health department is calling on the Army to check out a state legislator’s claims of exposed uranium in a controversial training site in southeast Colorado.
“I respectfully request that the Army take any and all necessary steps to investigate and characterize the potential for elevated concentrations of uranium in soil at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site and evaluate any associated health threats,” James B. Martin, executive director of the Colorado Department of Health and Environment wrote in a letter to Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, commanding general at Fort Carson.
State Rep. Wes McKinley took seven or eight soil samples at 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon site last year, discovering high concentrations of uranium, he said at a press conference last week.
“It’s proof they can’t take care of what they’ve got,” McKinley said of the Army at the press conference.
Martin said the state health department stands ready to assist the Army to analyze the risk, but uranium levels reported by McKinley would not appear to rise to a public health risk.
McKinley, D-Walsh, was once the jury foreman on the Rocky Flats grand jury that alleged heavy radioactive contamination and official misconduct at the former nuclear weapons site between Boulder and Golden. He later co-authored a book on the Rocky Flats allegations.
The Piñon Canyon training site south of La Junta is within McKinley’s district and has been the site of a hot controversy the last two years, as the Army as proposed taking private land to expand the site, which is rich in archaeological, historical and ecological treasures.
The Army has no authority to handle radioactive materials at the Piñon Canyon site, but uranium also occurs naturally in the environment in Colorado.
McKinley said at a press conference last week he was concerned about that the 48,000-acre wildfire at the site possibly exposed the public to uranium through smoke that drifted off the site.
McKinley could not be reached for comment this evening.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
