Explosion delayed until sometime in '07

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

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.