Water quality top concern at Test Site

Thursday, Feb. 4, 1999 | 11:06 a.m.

Testing ground water for radioactive contamination at the Nevada Test Site is a top priority for 2001, says a group of citizens who advise the Department of Energy on how to manage environmental cleanup there.

The volunteer Community Advisory Board for Nevada Test Site programs told DOE officials Wednesday night that testing ground water that flows from Pahute Mesa at the northwest corner of the site toward Amargosa Valley, where crops grow and cattle graze, remains the public's chief concern.

A Nevada official agreed with the citizens. John Walker, representing the state, said Nevada environmental and health officials are concerned about long-term impacts if radioactive ground water escapes from the Rhode Island-sized site.

The DOE is drilling six extra wells this year downstream from Pahute Mesa as an early-warning network to detect tritium or other radioactive elements that could leave the Test Site's boundaries. Tritium travels with ground water and is usually the first indication of radioactive contamination.

Although Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced the DOE's proposed budget for 2000 on Monday, the Nevada Operations Office and other federal sites are already preparing a work plan for 2001. Public comments are a major contribution to the plans.

None of the Nevada sites where nuclear testing was conducted in the 1960s through 1992 fit into the urgent cleanup category, said Carl Gertz, acting assistant manager for national security at Nevada's DOE.

Besides the Test Site, three other Nevada sites need monitoring and environmental management, he said: Fallon in Northern Nevada, the Tonopah Test Range and the Nellis Air Force Range.

The ground-water testing at Pahute Mesa, Frenchman Flat and Yucca Flat -- on the eastern edge of the Test Site -- are important, because large amounts of radiation contaminated the underground during nuclear weapons experiments, Gertz said. "The question is, how soon will it get to the public?" he said.

Yet no nuclear testing area targeted for cleanup poses an immediate threat to human health, Stephen Mellington, DOE's acting assistant manager for environmental management, said.

"The risk is to the environment itself," Mellington said. "There is no smoking gun."

For example, in Project Shoal, 30 miles southeast of Fallon, a 12-kiloton nuclear device blew up in a hole 1,211 feet deep on Oct. 26, 1963.

The experiment was conducted to find out if nuclear blast shock waves were different than seismic signals from an earthquake. The Fallon area seemed perfect, because it was in an active earthquake zone, according to DOE and Defense Department reports.

The DOE has cleaned up the surface of the site, Mellington said, but ground-water testing and monitoring is just beginning.

Some nuclear projects off the site, such as two tests conducted near the old mining town of Goldfield, posed a higher risk because people had access to them, Mellington said. In the case of Fallon, the Bureau of Land Management administers the land, so there is no public access to the site. The DOE has also drilled five wells there and expects to begin analyzing data this year.

Near Hattiesburg, Miss., the Nevada Operations Office must clean up the site of Salmon, a nuclear blast detonated on Oct. 10, 1964. Since the 5-kiloton explosion was so close to where people lived, the DOE may have to install a separate drinking water system, Mellington said, because tritium was detected in the town's water supply.