$44 million given to clean up Nevada Test Site

By Mary Manning

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 | 1:40 p.m.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced that $44 million will be used for environmental cleanup at the Nevada Test Site where nuclear weapons experiments were conducted during the Cold War.

The funding is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and is part of $6 billion to be used for cleanup nationwide.

The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, will continue its activities to monitor groundwater, explore soil and groundwater contamination and remove contaminated materials, Chu said. The Test Site was the continental proving ground for experimenting with both above-ground and underground nuclear weapons for the United States from 1951 until 1992.

Specific projects outlined for the funds include identifying waste characteristics within the soil at three corrective action sites, including the Schooner, Danny Boy and Buggy crater sites where nuclear explosions were conducted, and soil contamination at Area 25 Test Cell A, where the government once tested nuclear rocket engines.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, manager of the Test Site, also plans to install two monitoring wells on Pahute Mesa where underground nuclear testing was conducted from 1963 to 1992, said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration in Las Vegas. Those wells will provide more data on groundwater contamination to support future cleanup work, he said.

The funds will also go toward characterizing and identifying wastes at Sedan, Ess and Uncle nuclear weapons craters on the Test Site, Morgan said.

The money will also be used to demolish and decontaminate three major facilities, the Engineering Maintenance Assembly and Disassembly building, the Plutonium Disassembly building, and the Reactor Maintenance Assembly and Disassembly building, all used in past nuclear weapons experiments.

Two Area 25 Test Cell C small structures will be taken down and decontaminated, Morgan said.

In addition to radioactive contaminants, the Test Site is cleaning up hazardous chemicals such as asbestos, mercury, lead, arsenic, light bulbs and batteries in the area where nuclear rocket engines were tested, Morgan said.

The Nevada Test Site environmental management program is expected to be complete in 2027, Morgan said.

The projects and new funding for Energy Department site cleanup is managed by the Department's Office of Environmental Management. That office is responsible for reducing risks and cleaning up the environmental legacy from the nation's nuclear weapons program, Chu said.