Colorado Rockies, Front Range, Water and Uranium

[Astronuc]

Reservoir built for nearly 1 million Coloradans stalls at 2% full after uranium is found​

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/reservoir-built-nearly-1-million-222500960.html

The reservoir is designed to hold Colorado River water for 12 growing Front Range communities, including Broomfield and Greeley.

But after just 12 days of filling, operations stopped following the discovery of radioactive uranium. The reservoir has a capacity of roughly 29 billion gallons and is only about 2% full. Now, Northern Water is investigating how much naturally occurring uranium may be leaching into the water from the dam rock.
. . .
"None of that water will be leaving until we've got that uranium figured out," Northern Water spokesperson Rachel Stevens told KUNC.

Crews are collecting water samples each week and sending them to a lab for testing. One possible fix is to lower the small pool to flush out the uranium, but officials want more test results before deciding on the next step.

For now, the issue has delayed the project by at least a year, and a clearer timeline remains uncertain.

Note: I struck through "Colorado River", since the reservoir in question is on the east side of the Rockies, east of Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, and the creeks and streams on the east side flow into the Platte River system.


There are defunct uranium mines in the mountains northwest of Denver and Golden Colorado. I did a survey of alpha activity in some runoff from a mine 53 years ago.
For example, https://earthworks.org/blog/schwartzwalder_mine/


Chimney Hollow Reservoir Project
https://www.northernwater.org/water/projects/windy-gap-project/chimney-hollow-reservoir-project

The Chimney Hollow Reservoir is NNW of Denver and north of Boulder, Colorado, near the Carter Lake Reservoir near Loveland, Colorado. Uranium is naturally found in the rock formations of the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies.

The subject matter involves geology (rocks and minerals, and hydrology (groundwater)) and nuclear science (decay of uranium and daughter products).

 

[gmax137]

This site has more details:
https://www.northernwater.org/CHRP/environment/water-quality