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| | Federal Plan Exposes Colorado's Entire Roan Plateau to Drilling |
 | | The Roan Plateau, rising 3,500 feet above the Colorado River valley, with the towns of Rifle and Parachute at its feet, is the latest object of discord in the Western energy conflict. |
 | | The area at issue lies between the towns of Rifle and Parachute and consists of three visually, geologically, and ecologically distinct areas - dry semi-desert habitats at lower elevations, moist montane and subalpine habitats at higher elevations, and a band of high and most unbroken cliffs separating these areas. |
 | | The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the primary environmental regulator for the state, and BLM's contractor, Dynamac, have conducted analyses of the site, known as the Anvil Points Research Facility Site, and have concluded that the pile is the source of arsenic and other heavy metals contamination leaching into surface and groundwater. |
| www.ens-newswire.com /ens/nov2004/2004-11-29-04.asp (1724 words) |
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