I am currently living in Canon City with my parents. I’ve been house hunting considering buying. I even made an offer on a home in Florence but offered less that what was being asked and it wasn’t accepted. I didn’t want to pay more because the home was close to the Arkansas river and Flood plain coded AE by FEMA (which means high risk for flooding.)
It is a buyer’s market. Many homes in the surrounding area are up for sale, but if I buy and then when I go to sell the home, it might not sell right away. I need to take that into consideration and buy when I am sure that is where I want to plant for awhile.
Unrelated to my housing search, I also enjoy learning about geology and have watched many videos covering areas all over the world, country and state, including here in my own back yard, Canon City. Colorado geology contains many Jurassic era features and we have dinosaur fossil beds, one of which is close to Canon City.
None of the geology videos impacted my search for a home however until the mines were discussed. There are numerous mines just south of Canon City in and around Lincoln Park which include coal mines. One particularly large mine and its underground caves which remain there to this day stood out because it was close to a house I have been interested in. These mines have long since become abandoned, but my present day concern is whether they can become a sink-hole risk in the present.
The structure in the white oval is a map of the underground mines in and near Lincoln Park, which is just south of the home I was considering (by a few blocks.)
My search would have been over, because I was satisfied the house being considered was not directly over this structure (although it was close.) However in looking for this video, I stumbled across another I had not previously found.
My parents mentioned to me there were problems with radioactivity in the south side of Canon City from a past company. I wasn’t aware of to what they were referring. I know what nuclear reactor towers look like and there are none nearby nor have there ever been. I just brushed it off in the moment but later wondered if I should look into it since some of the interesting houses were in the area of which they were speaking (Lincoln Park.)
The video that explained the situation was: ‘The Hidden Crisis (Documentary) – Crime, Corruption, and the Poisoning of Canon City.’ It is too long and complicated covering many topics to summarize here, but if you are interested you can look it up on Youtube by searching for that title.
The main point is a pond of radioactive contamination which exists just south of Canon City and Lincoln Park and the danger it poses to people in the area. The home I was considering is pictured in proximity to the pond below:
The faint blue circle in the lower right shows the location. In reality, it is a yellow radioactive cesspool. The source is ‘The Cotton Uranium Mill’ which began construction in 1958. It spent decades mining uranium to sell to the Atomic Energy Commission. The problem is how they disposed of the dangerous waste.
The toxic waste site is uphill, so one year the area flooded and the banks of the cesspool breached and flowed through Lincoln Park to the Arkansas river. According to the video, in 1984, the Cotter Uranium Mill and Lincoln Park were designated as a Superfund site by the EPA. The definition of a Superfund site according to Google is: “a polluted location in the United States that requires a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contamination under a federal program administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)” One would think after that the victory was won and the site would have been cleaned up.
The reality is, to this day for a variety of reasons as laid out in the video, it has not been. If you are interested in the issue of Uranium Waste in Colorado and its affects on the land and its inhabitants, Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste (CCAT) and local to Canon City, Community Advisory Group (CAG) are fighting to propel movement on clean up efforts of this and other radioactive contamination situations. The video was created in 2023, so these groups can be a source of more updated information.
I started out this day wondering whether I should refrain from purchasing a home due to old mine tunnels. I ended the day realizing that was not the greatest concern. I think I will refrain from buying anything for awhile. I have a lot to learn.