For almost thirty years, from 1956 to 1984, the Atlas Mill processed fourteen hundred tons of uranium, day in and day out. All of it within a stone’s throw of the lifeblood of the American Southwest: the Colorado River. The US Department of Energy stepped in with this new project to move 16 million tons of uranium tailings from the banks of the Colorado River to a permanent disposal site thirty miles north, near the town of Crescent Junction. Every day two trains, each up to twenty-six cars long, transported highly radioactive waste away from its burial site along the river. The landscape that surrounded him was unimaginably grand and spectacularly beautiful, but of all the environments on earth this one was among the least tolerant of fools and their mistakes. The uncommon and exceptional wealth it made for a few brash men and women had even led to murder on occasion. Most often, however, what killed a person was their own foolishness. Silas called it the slickrock paradox: While the stone was innocent enough to look at, once you tried to get a grip on it, it took your feet out from under you.
