Test Site cleanup efforts lose funds in Bush budget

Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2002 | 9:43 a.m.

The budget President Bush presented to Congress reduces proposed funding for environmental cleanup at the Nevada Test Site by about $26 million, although a planned center for counter-terrorism training could receive $10 million.

The Bush administration on Monday asked Congress for $818 million to fund operations at the Test Site -- which includes money needed to prepare for the licensing of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The $10 million increase for developing a counter-terrorism training center, supported by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was the largest single increase in the Nevada budget.

The site, 65 northwest of Las Vegas, received $708 million in 2002.

Although the DOE's budget for Test Site increased, the total masks deep cuts for site cleanup, officials said.

Last year the DOE received $88 million for restoring the Test Site's environment, including monitoring for possible radioactive contamination in ground water and cleaning up former toxic and radioactive waste on the property, which is larger in area than Rhode Island.

This year Bush proposed $61.9 million for Test Site cleanup.

"This was a major surprise to us," National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Kevin Rohrer said of the reduced environmental funding.

Most of the funding increase for the Nevada site involves preparing an application and license for Yucca Mountain, expected to be recommended by Bush later this month as the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository, Rohrer said.

From 1951 to 1992 the Test Site was the proving ground for 928 above- and below-ground nuclear experiments. Work at the site has shifted primarily to maintaining readiness to resume nuclear testing if the president orders it, as well as decontaminating the area.

Carl Gertz, project manager in charge of environmental cleanup at the Test Site, said he would make ground water monitoring and low-level nuclear waste disposal his top priorities.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham Monday established a new $800 million account that can be tapped by all 109 DOE sites nationwide to speed cleanup at those sites. DOE facilities from throughout the country will use part of their budgets to contribute to the fund.

Nevada's contribution to the new account would be $28 million.

Proposed funding for experimental defense programs, including the training center, is $58 million, as compared to $48 million in the budget effective during the current fiscal year.

Another project supported by Reid involves moving the Atlas, a high-tech experimental facility, to the Test Site from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as part of a national weapons consolidation program. The move would cost about $3.3 million.00