Ensign calls for study of plutonium at Nevada Test Site

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 1997 | 9:10 a.m.

Ensign, R-Nev., introduced legislation that would authorize Secretary of Energy Federico Pena to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to study the effects of plutonium leakage at the Nevada Test Site.

Chemists Annie Kersting of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Joe Thompson of Los Alamos, N.M. National Laboratory, said last week that the plutonium was detected in a monitoring well on the Nevada Test Site. The well is eight-tenths of a mile south of the site of a test code-named Benham, which was conducted Dec. 19, 1969.

Nevada officials have been fighting a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, where radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants would be stored.

A major concern has been that the waste, which would remain at dangerous levels for 10,000 years, could eventually seep into water tables around the remote desert site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"We've got to have a clearer picture of how serious this problem is and what the possible health risks are," Ensign said. "My hope is that the NAS, as one of the most prestigious groups of scientists in the country, can provide some answers for the people of Nevada."