Test site officials ask for help in attracting private projects

Jennifer Coleman

Tuesday, March 16, 1999 | 10:37 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Companies now operating at the Nevada Test Site asked lawmakers Monday for state help in bidding to build Lockheed Martin's "Venture Star," a proposed replacement for the space shuttle.

Troy Wade, chairman of the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and Business, said Nevada will be competing for the $1 billion dollar project against 17 other states.

"We stand a great chance of getting this project," Wade told a joint meeting of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees.

The project will go to the state that offers Lockheed Martin the best economic and technical package, he said, adding that the effort to bring the "Star Venture" to Nevada will require the state's support.

The alliance represents numerous contractors and businesses, including the NTS Development Corp. which would be the lead bidder on the shuttle project.

Gerry Johnson, manager of the test site, presented a brief history of the site and showed legislators an experimental facility he estimated would be built between 2005 and 2010 to study how a nuclear blast works.

The test site is also used for training emergency response teams in the case of chemical, biological or nuclear attacks by terrorists, Johnson said.

"When we did underground testing, that proved that nuclear worked. Now we want to know why," Johnson said in discussing future uses of the site where many above-ground and underground nuclear weapons tests were conducted.

Sen. Bob Coffin expressed concern about the test site's lack of disclosure to its employees and to the public about exposure to harmful elements from nuclear weapons testing in the past.

"It's time to rebuild the trust that's been lost over several years," he said.

Johnson agreed with Coffin's assessment.

"If you look at the Cold War days, the Department of Energy did not have a very positive reputation for how we dealt with worker safety, how we dealt with the environment, or how we dealt with the public," Johnson said. He stressed that the department had changed since then and now works to exceed environmental and worker safety guidelines.

He added he has been meeting with ranchers whose land borders the site.

"They want to be good neighbors, but they want to be able to trust us," Johnson said. "They want us to be upfront and honest with them."