Editorial: Doubts over B-52 burn tests

Thursday, Aug. 5, 1999 | 8:59 a.m.

The U.S. Department of Energy wants to burn B-52 bomber parts, along with nearly two tons of depleted uranium, at the Tonopah Test Range to test the safety of nuclear weapons in the event of a fire aboard a B-52. But a Nevada Division of Environmental Protection official, Paul Liebendorfer, and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., have good reasons to express reservations about the proposal. Liebendorfer believes the plan has "some major deficiencies" since it doesn't adequately address the dispersal of the depleted uranium. Reid believes that given today's technological advancements, there shouldn't be a need to burn uranium or any bomber parts. "We already use computers to simulate nuclear tests and I don't see why the DOE shouldn't follow the same approach in solving the problem," Reid said.

Many Western states with small populations, such as Nevada, frequently are viewed as dumping grounds by Washington policymakers and bureaucrats. For instance, the efforts by Congress to place a high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada without any regard to its impact on safety or the environment has been well documented. Add to this the since abandoned above-ground nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site, which sent radiation fallout across the nation. Some of the "downwinders" who live in Nevada, Arizona and Utah attribute the cancers they've developed to these tests. More recently the federal government successfully fended off a lawsuit filed by workers who said they were exposed to harmful amounts of hazardous waste at Area 51, a top-secret Air Force base near the Nevada Test Site. The workers claimed that the burning of toxic waste caused de aths and serious injuries, but unfortunately the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that upheld the dismissal of their lawsuit based on nati

onal security concerns.

In the name of science or national security, the federal government often gives short shrift to the impact these policies can have on health and safety. Before moving forward with the B-52 burn tests, the DOE should rethink its decision and explore another alternative, as recommended by Reid, which would be similar to the DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program. That program, as Reid has noted, uses advanced computer models and simulations -- instead of nuclear reactions -- to test the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons. At the very least, the DOE should seriously consider the feasibility of B-52 tests that are benign.