Remnants of the nuclear frenzy that swept across the
Colorado Plateau from the 1950s still scar the landscape,
especially in the form of exploration roads carved into the
wilderness. Bob Dawson’s image on the cover of your Sept. 4
issue reflects the fact that impacts on the built environment often
fade more quickly than disruptions to the natural order.
Today, there are signs of a resurrected interest in another energy
resource, oil shale, the same resource that initiated its own
frenzy on Colorado’s Western Slope in the 1980s. If such
development rises from the ashes of its predecessor, the “Uranium
Drive-in” in your photo will become the “Oil Shale Drive-in,” and
there will be massive landscape changes including new cities, roads
and congestion. Oil shale planning will soon make its presence
blatantly apparent, and it will persist like no activity has
before. The impacts of nuclear exploration and development will
pale in comparison.
Martin J.
Pasqualetti
Professor, School of Geographical
Sciences
Arizona State University
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The next boom: oil shale.
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