Scientists debate NTS radiation levels

Monday, Sept. 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A U.S. Department of Energy scientist believes a family could camp for a week without harm to their health on soils once contaminated by nuclear weapons explosions.

Others aren't so comfortable with the idea.

DOE health physicist David Wheeler made that statement last week while presenting information gathered by air and ground to the Citizens Advisory Board, which is concerned with the future of the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Above- and below-ground nuclear weapons tests were conducted at the Test Site from the 1950s through 1992, when a moratorium was enacted on nuclear explosions. Now the government is looking for alternative uses for the Test Site.

Although air measurements from 500 feet and 200 feet above the surface and surveys done by monitors at ground level indicated some spots appeared "hotter" or more radioactive than most of the Test Site, a family camping there wouldn't receive more than the 100 millirems of exposure allowed by international standards from all radioactive sources, Wheeler said.

"The family could camp there for a week a year and not violate the radiation standard," he said.

In areas not showing any contamination that cover more than half the Test Site, anyone could live year-round without exposure to any man-made radiation sources, such as plutonium, Wheeler said.

But Paul Richitt of UNLV's Department of Environmental Studies said people camping out would breathe, ingest and be exposed to radioactive particles from kicked-up plutonium dust.

But Wheeler said workers measuring the soils had been surveyed after traveling over the areas and no contamination was found.

However, Richitt noted that the DOE did not have a total exposure from all radioactive sources, since monitors measured only gamma levels. Plutonium emits alpha particles, which are dangerous when inhaled and ingested. Other nuclear bomb products produce beta radiation, which also has to be ingested to become dangerous to human health.

Richitt, a former Environmental Protection Agency scientist, had support from nuclear physicist Dennis Weber of the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Research at UNLV.

"I don't think you can make the statement you can camp out there," Weber said. "You had the arithmetic, but I don't think your physics is good."

Although the Test Site is not completely contaminated, its radiation levels are not trivial, said Bill Andrews of the Harry Reid Center.

Andrews upbraided Wheeler for "your cavalier attitude about the risks, which bother me a little."

While trying to obtain radiation information for analyzing the risks to future Test Site users, Andrews said the DOE never revealed enough data for him to do a thorough job. Andrews has a top-secret clearance from the federal government.

"The information needs to come out so people may review it on their own," Andrews said. "The future land use, otherwise, is a fenced campground, I guess."

Bill Vasconi, who has worked at the Test Site, defended the DOE's attempt to measure the contamination.

"We're not going to go out there and plant corn," he said. "Let's see what Mother Nature does with the radiation."

One problem is that no money has been available to release data from the air and ground surveys. Wheeler has had $100,000 available for his surface survey, compared with $15 million to $20 million for the DOE to monitor groundwater on the Test Site.