Test Site looks to land assembly plant

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1998 | 11:22 a.m.

The Nevada Test Site is in the running to attract a nuclear assembly project considered for transfer from the Department of Energy's Mound Plant near Miamisburg, Ohio.

The project involves assembly of nuclear generators and heaters for deep-space probes used by National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The DOE announced the proposal to move the Ohio project Friday in the Federal Register. Public hearings will be held in each state involved. The Las Vegas hearing has been set for Nov. 12.

If successful in gaining the project, the Test Site would gain 30 highly technical positions, DOE Nevada Operations spokesman Darwin Morgan said Tuesday. "It would help diversify the site," he said.

The annual budget for the project is $7 million.

In an effort to diversify the test site, Bechtel Nevada and the nonprofit Nevada Test Site Development Corp. have been seeking suitable high-tech industry to replace the end of nuclear-weapons experiments at the site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"We are in the running with Idaho, Texas, Tennessee and Washington state," Morgan said. The Test Site has been in limbo over its future since a moratorium on nuclear testing became effective in 1992. From 1951 until 1992 the site was the U.S. continental proving ground for nuclear weapons.

The Mound operation assembles devices called RTGs -- Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators -- which have powered every deep-space probe to the outer planets beyond Mars.

Ohio communities near the project are upset about the potential move. Most businesses developed near the RTG facility have used Mound experts or equipment to launch high-tech enterprises.

If the DOE removes the assembly work from Ohio, the agency would vacate the plant by February 2003.

The Ohio site, about 10 miles southwest of Dayton, is being converted into a private business park.

But removing the last work involving RTGs from Ohio could hurt commercial redevelopment efforts at the 306-acre site, Michael J. Grauwelman, director of the Miamisburg Mound Community Improvement Corp., said.

The RTG project differs from the two commercial spacecraft-launch ventures proposed for the Test Site by Kistler Aerospace and Lockheed Martin's VentureStar. The space probes are not driven by private industry.

In a development affecting the Kistler and Lockheed ventures, the House passed a bill Monday that would allow private companies to send reusable launch vehicles into space. The bill, crafted with White House support, would authorize the Department of Transportation to license U.S. companies to launch vehicles similar to NASA space shuttles. It advanced by voice vote and was sent to the Senate.