Explosion
delayed until sometime in '07
By
Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau
August 2, 2006
WINDOW ROCK — U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-2nd District,
applauded an announcement Tuesday by the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency that the Divine Strake non-nuclear explosion
planned at Nevada Test Site could not be conducted until
several months into 2007 at the earliest. The
Divine Strake non-nuclear explosion is planned for Nevada
Test Site where atomic testing was conducted largely
in the 1950s and 1960s, thus raising health concerns
that residual contamination could be disturbed and redeposited
downwind by new testing, whether nuclear or non-nuclear.
Reservations
populated by Navajo, Hopi and Zuni tribes were not immune
to radioactive fallout from the atomic tests, which
basically blanketed the United States. However, to date,
few tribal members have been compensated by the federal
government as "downwinders."
After reading
Defense Department budget documents this spring, Matheson
wrote to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency expressing
concerns regarding the actual purpose and the health
and safety ramifications of the proposed 700-ton conventional
explosives detonation at the desert test site 65 miles
north of Las Vegas.
The bomb,
consisting of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel
oil, has been viewed by some as a covert way for the
federal government to conduct "bunker buster"
research.
"The
government has yet to provide environmental data regarding
what the health risks are to communities downwind of
the explosion. Absent that data, I think the postponement
and announced intention to gather more information is
tacit acknowledgement that uncertainty remains,"
Matheson said.
Officials
have confirmed that one purpose of the test is to validate
modeling codes for designing a nuclear weapon, he said.
The Divine
Strake blast would be detonated in a shallow pit dug
above an underground concrete tunnel. The site is about
a mile from an area where six underground nuclear bombs
were exploded in the early 1970s.
Matheson
said he shares the skepticism of Utahns when the government
says testing is "safe," given the past history
of government deception surrounding nuclear weapons
testing in Nevada.
A congressional
briefing in late April validated Matheson's concerns
about development and potential testing of new nuclear
weapons, he said. Afterward, he said the budget documents
before Congress and briefing information supplied by
DTRA to congressional staff and media included statements
about plans for new nuclear weapons.
Two Western
Shoshone tribes and individual Western Shoshone Indians
and downwinders from Nevada and Utah filed suit in April
asking a federal judge in Las Vegas to stop the above-ground
blast which was to have been detonated June 23 after
being rescheduled from June 2.
The Western
Shoshone tribes filed expert testimony from Dr. Thomas
Fasy of Physicians for Social Responsibility in New
York, and Richard Miller, a toxic exposures expert from
Houston who authored the five volume "U.S. Atlas
of Nuclear Fallout."
Fasy wrote
that "to a reasonable degree of medical and scientific
certainty, the 'Divine Strake' explosion would disperse
large amounts of radioactive particles into the atmosphere
... millions of citizens living downwind ... are at
risk of inhaling particles."
He said "it
is virtually certain that this inhalation of radioactive
particles would result in an increased frequency of
a variety of cancers in the exposed populations. Moreover,
the increased risk of developing cancers would be born
disproportionately by the children living downwind."
Miller singled
out what he called the Department of Energy's "insufficient
research regarding the health effects of many of the
potential radioisotopes possibly buried in the soil"
that might become suspended in the dust cloud as a result
of the Divine Strake test.
Both experts
warned that "entire communities may be exposed
to radioisotopes including alpha emitters know to cause
cancer."
The National
Nuclear Security Administration withdrew its Finding
of No Significant Impact in May related to an environmental
assessment for the open-air test. DTRA had planned to
conduct the test June 2, but postponed it for three
weeks following questions from Matheson, U.S. Rep. Shelley
Berkley, D-Nev., and other members of Congress.
Shelley asked
for written assurance that the proposed blast is not
part of a program to develop new nuclear weapons, as
she said had been alleged by some in the Defense community.
The blast
is expected to create a shock wave equivalent to an
earthquake ranging from 3.1 to 3.4 on the Richter scale,
which has the potential to stir up radioactive dust
and debris.
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