7 Nevada sites part of secret DOE work

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

Seven sites in Nevada may have been involved in secret research or production of the nuclear weapons arsenal in the 1950s and 1960s, new information released by the Department of Energy today reveals.

The sites were on a DOE list of 550 companies, research sites and places across the nation where government scientists may have secretly processed radioactive and toxic materials to build the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

It is the first comprehensive list released by the government that includes commercial facilities, such as Titanium Metals, one of the seven Nevada sites. Many of the federal sites have been known for years.

Other Nevada sites included Nellis Air Force Base, the Nuclear Rocket Development Station at the Nevada Test Site, the Central Nevada Test Site north of Tonopah, the Shoal Test Site near Fallon, the University of Nevada, Reno and the U.S. Bureau of Mines, Reno Station.

The list was released today as a House hearing got under way on a bill that would compensate for the first time government weapons workers with diseases linked to exposure to radioactive and toxic materials. Workers at commercial facilities are not included in the compensation package.

A brief description of each site and its activities compiled from old Atomic Energy Commission and other federal records:

Low levels of radioactivity have been found in the ground water near the plant, but scientists who are charged with monitoring the area have not pinpointed a source. Timet uses rutile, an Australian ore that contains some low levels of uranium, to process the light, but strong, titanium metal.

The DOE began digging in 1999 under pits where radioactive rocket parts were buried. The DOE found that total radiation in the area is about one-tenth of the average chest X-ray exposure, DOE spokeswoman Nancy Harkess said. DOE will decide in December how to remedy the site, she said.

The DOE and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration managed the station from the mid-1950s until President Nixon canceled nuclear-powered rocket research in 1972.

The DOE is cleaning up chemical wastes left from drilling the test cavity.

The DOE has cleaned up the surface of the site, but ground water testing and monitoring just began in February 1999.

No contamination was identified after a DOE team visited in the late 1970s.

The DOE is reexamining records at many of these sites. Officials said they are developing a plan to address worker safety and potential environmental problems at many of the sites.

As more information becomes available, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said it will be posted on a public database created on the DOE's Web site: www.doe.gov.