City Canyon – Residents living near a toxic plume on a Superfund site finally received the water quality testing they had been seeking for years.
But the inspections are not being conducted by state health officials or the Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for cleaning up the Lincoln Park Superfund site, where more than 5 million tons of radioactive waste is buried.
Since 2004, Colorado health officials have tested 32 wells on private property with suspected toxic groundwater plumes near the site of the Cotter uranium plant south of town.
Local residents are calling for expanded water and soil testing to check for toxins leaking into nearby drains, waterways and wells used to water crops and livestock. The answer for state and federal EPA is always “no” and not until an inspection plan is developed.
But in late April, dozens of Fremont County residents poured water from taps, wells, springs, ponds and canals into more than 220 test tubes to be tested for heavy metals and radioactive elements. For free.
Colorado Citizens Against Hazardous Waste (CCAT), a nonprofit organization based in Cannon City, has teamed up with Veterans for Peace and the Arthur S. Ratcliffe Mobile Community Lab to make testing available to any Fremont County resident. All residents had to do was pick up a test tube, fill it, label it with the sample number, and return it.
Within a few weeks, we should know if our water is safe.
“I just want to know,” said Elizabeth Miller, who brought samples of her tap water and a spring that flows through her basement and into nearby Sells Lake.
She lives at the bottom of what is known to longtime residents as Pump Hill. There used to be a pumping station there, providing water to people who came to draw water. Although the pump house is long gone, spring water still flows through the property, requiring the Millers to install a sump pump in the basement.
Water samples submitted by Cannon City residents are awaiting testing at Colorado Citizens for Toxic Waste’s mobile laboratory on April 25, 2026. Colorado Citizens Group has submitted samples to a lab and expects results in mid-May. (Mike Sweeney, Special Reporter, Colorado Sun)
The presence of such springs and undiscovered underground waterways near uranium mill sites and along the Arkansas River has worried environmentalists since the Superfund site was declared in 1984. Environmentalists have called for expanded testing or subsidies to conduct their own testing, but to no avail.
Then, suddenly, just a few months ago, the Ratcliffe Mobile Institute became involved.
“We can now do what the regulators couldn’t do,” said Jeri Fry, a co-founder of CCAT and a longtime member of citizen advisory groups that meet with Superfund regulators. “This is almost unbelievable. It’s great for the community to have answers.”
And at the April 25 collection, it was clear that people wanted answers as residents dropped filled test tubes one after another. Many people picked up extra test tubes and took them to family and friends so they could return their water samples the same day.
John Shoemaker, who lives north of Cannon City, took advantage of the free testing even though he doesn’t live in the area where the toxic plume is suspected. He suspects the results are unreliable because he paid $250 for state water testing before the testing facility was shut down in late 2024 due to testing defects. The state has suspended water testing.
“I heard about it from my neighbors and decided to take advantage of the test,” he said. “Let’s see what they come up with.”
Mr. Fry was overjoyed that the number of participants exceeded his expectations. She immediately began making plans for ongoing water testing and future soil testing.
“This shows that people are hungry for information,” she said. “It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this type of testing privately. It’s just not possible to do this privately.”
uranium factory waste
From 1958 to 2011, Cotter milled uranium on a 2,600-acre property adjacent to the Fremont County community of Lincoln Park, two miles south of Cannon City. The company manufactured yellowcake for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and was releasing radionuclides and heavy metals into an unlined pond on the property for much of the year.
The EPA added the factory site and surrounding land to the Superfund cleanup list in 1984. A 1988 settlement between Cotter and the state of Colorado resulted in initial cleanup efforts, including linking Lincoln Park residents to Cannon City water, cleaning up tailings and soil at various locations, and constructing a groundwater barrier at the north end of the mill site.
In 2002, the EPA declared Lincoln Park’s soil cleanup complete.
The factory continued to operate until 2006, but was permanently closed in 2011. In 2014, Cotter was ordered under Superfund law to conduct a remediation survey and cleanup plan for the factory site. Since then, work on the plan has moved piecemeal, involving Cotter, Colorado Legacy Land, and Cotter again.
During the change in responsibility, EPA split part of the study and began a human risk assessment. Its initial testing is expected to begin this year.
In addition to the 32 private wells, CDPHE has conducted air, soil and water testing over the years, including several locations on the Arkansas River and other groundwater and surface water locations in and around Superfund sites, state officials said in an emailed response to questions.
When asked what the testing accomplished, CDPHE directed those seeking results to pages 41-47 of its 2024 annual report, which includes results from individual testing facilities. Although there is no overall overview of ongoing water testing programs, CDPHE says the data “will inform our decision-making process to address contamination through the Superfund process.”
Although test results appear to have changed little over time, there are at least four wells in the Lincoln Park area that continue to exceed safe levels for uranium, according to the latest quarterly test reports.
Two testing sites along the Arkansas River, the First Street Bridge and the McKenzie Avenue Bridge, test below CDPHE standards for uranium, molybdenum, thorium-230, and radium-226.
A CDPHE fact sheet containing public health information states that the EPA and the Department of Health concluded in 2002 that “although groundwater contamination still exists, soil and sediment cleanup in operational Unit 2 (Lincoln Park area) has been completed. Most well owners in Lincoln Park are connected to the City of Cannon water system, which significantly reduces the potential for contact with contaminated groundwater.”
The fact sheet advises that a remedial investigation, which has not yet begun nearly 24 years after this conclusion, “will analyze other potential contaminants and transport routes.”
activists intervene
The public water testing initiated by CCAT was done by chance. When CCAT’s new board members sought information about water testing in the town of Brookside, a few miles east of the Superfund site, they were kicked out of their rental home, Frye said.
The board members returned to Louisiana, but their work on radioactive contamination led them to Michael Ketterer, a chemist and professor emeritus at Northern Arizona University. He runs the Ratcliffe Mobile Laboratory to help local residents learn what’s in their water.
A board member connected Mr. Fry to Mr. Ketterer, and Mr. Fry traveled to Bernalillo, New Mexico, to see the lab in action.
“We received speed training on how to prepare samples,” Fry said.
Michael Ketterer manages a mobile laboratory that tests water samples submitted by residents in Cañon City on April 25, 2026. (Mike Sweeney, Special Reporter, Colorado Sun)
Meanwhile, Ketterer joined CCAT’s board of directors and scheduled a visit to Cañon City to collect and test water samples.
The outspoken retired professor says he can do this research “as a hobby,” but it’s clear he’s passionate about using his expertise to help citizens, whether they’re New Mexico’s Downwind victims of atomic bomb testing or Lincoln Park residents concerned about water quality.
“I have the ultimate form of academic freedom,” he said of his status as a retiree. “I can tell the truth. I feel it is my duty.”
He has been criticized in some quarters, including by national regulators and those involved in Rocky Flats land use. But he says his research is based on what the equipment tells him, producing factual data.
The idea for the mobile laboratory was put together by Veterans for Peace’s Uranium Weapons Working Group about a year ago. That’s when the late Art Ratcliffe donated a 17-foot-tall camper to house equipment such as an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer that Ketterer uses to test for radionuclides and heavy metals in water.
The nonprofit Veterans Association is an international organization based in St. Louis whose mission is to educate the public and decision-makers about the true and total costs of armed conflict, including but not limited to KIA and MIA, but also environmental damage, suicide, homelessness, veteran health care and compensation, and cultural upheaval, Albuquerque chapter president John Wilkes said in an email.
Community volunteers helped run the lab, first in New Mexico and now in Canon City, for several weeks.
People can donate to the effort through Veterans for Peace, but because dangerous toxins are forever with humanity, Ketterer said he hopes to find a major sponsor to ensure the testing effort continues.
“I’ll die, but these pollutants will still be there,” he said. “I want to tell you the truth about it. We have to keep testing until the end.”
