In this March 28, 2005, photo, a sign posted outside a water well indicates perchlorate contamination at a site in Rialto, Calif. Upholding a Trump-era environmental policy, EPA says it will not regulate the drinking water contaminant that has been linked to brain damage in infants. AP Photo/Ric Francis, File
Posted by Elaine Cimino, 26 March 2026
Perchlorates, Acid Gas, and Explosive Risk: The Undisclosed Impacts of Project Ranger
Castelion LLC with the help of autocratic New Mexico government in the city, county and state are now pouring cement and erecting steel for the tech bro’s private bomb making facility in Rio Rancho,NM. This is a part of the Golden Dome Project linked to Project Jupiter.
What is being built under the label of “economic development” is not a standard industrial project. It is a hypersonic testing and manufacturing weapons facility built around solid rocket motors, explosive propellants, and static fire testing.
this article goes into what States fire weapons testing of the solid rocket motors do the the Environmental and How it impacts the community of Rio Rancho that is 39% low income.
Solid rocket motors are not neutral systems. They use ammonium perchlorate, aluminum powder, and polymer binders—an energetic mixture that burns at extreme temperatures and cannot be shut down once ignited. Static fire testing anchors that combustion in place, producing dense plumes of gases, particulates, and chemical residues.
Those residues do not disappear. They settle.
Ammonium perchlorate does not fully combust. It leaves behind perchlorates—highly mobile, persistent compounds that move through soil and groundwater and remain in aquifers for decades. This is a documented outcome of rocket testing across the Southwest. Each burn also produces hydrogen chloride gas, which becomes hydrochloric acid as it cools. Aluminum becomes fine particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides form under high heat. These emissions are inherent to the fuel itself.
None of it stays in the air. It falls onto the land.
That matters because this site is not ordinary land. It sits on conservation land designated to protect aquifer recharge and within the Arroyo Calabacillas watershed—the system that governs how water infiltrates into the ground and feeds municipal wells. This is a recharge landscape. Water does not simply run off. It moves downward.
Whatever settles onto this surface is carried into that system. Perchlorates dissolve and move with infiltrating water. Particulates accumulate and are mobilized during storm events. Acid deposition alters soil chemistry and affects long-term recharge quality. The same permeability that allows recharge also allows contamination to move through it.
The watershed is already under strain. Flood flows exceed capacity. Channels are unstable. Infrastructure is stressed. Grading, paving, and corridor expansion accelerate runoff in some areas and reduce infiltration in others. At the same time, the water that does infiltrate carries contamination.
Hydrology and chemistry are being altered together.
This is a coupled system. Reduced recharge and degraded water quality reinforce each other, while increased runoff destabilizes the watershed further.
The geology does not contain this risk. It spreads it.
This is a faulted landscape within the Rio Grande Rift. Groundwater moves through fractures and subsurface connections. Contaminants entering this system do not remain localized. They migrate through the same pathways that move water across the basin.
At least four municipal wells depend on this aquifer. There is no separation between where contamination begins and where water is ultimately used. nothing in the construction shows the mitigation techniques they were to use.
The sequence is direct. Fuel is burned. Residue settles. Water carries it downward. The aquifer carries it outward. The wells bring it back.
Once that sequence begins, it does not reverse.
Perchlorates persist. Cleanup is slow, costly, and often incomplete. The consequences emerge over time in degraded water quality and long-term impacts to communities that depend on this resource.
This is occurring in a region already facing water scarcity, declining snowpack, and existing return-flow deficits. Recharge is not optional. It is essential.
And this is the land that was meant to protect it.
Instead, it is being used as the receiving surface for rocket combustion and the pathway into the aquifer.
This is not compatible land use. It is not contained. It is not reversible.
We deserve a full Environmental Impact Statement on Project Ranger In stead we are met with silence.
See: Original Post
