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Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, is calling for the Army
to disclose all it knows about radiation tests it conducted at Utah's
Dugway Proving Ground.
He wrote Defense Secretary William Perry on Thursday seeking
"information that would indicate if rangelands, livestock and, most
importantly, residents of Utah were contaminated in these tests."
That came after the Deseret News disclosed this week that Dugway
Proving Ground conducted at least 33 tests - and possibly more than
600 - between 1949 and 1952 to develop weapons that could spread
radioactive materials. Documents suggested tests may have continued
for years afterward.
Tests included dropping radioactive pellets from high-altitude
aircraft, exploding radioactive cluster bombs, exploding different
shapes of radioactive metal to see which would spread more
contamination and testing dust generators that spewed radioactive
specks.
The smallest of those tests released 6.7 times as much radiation as
the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident. The largest
released 2,000 times more.
Bennett specifically sought data showing "the number and types of
tests that were conducted in this period; subsequent tests that were
conducted after 1952; if there remains any residual radiation; and if
risks exist in the surrounding areas as a result of these tests."
Bennett told Perry Utahns are wary about such tests because the
government had assured them that separate nuclear bomb tests at the
Nevada Test Site - conducted when the wind was blowing toward Utah -
were safe.
"Unfortunately, a generation later those guarantees don't mean much
after cancer has claimed the lives of many southern Utahns as a result
of government nuclear testing. Consequently, it is imperative that we
bring to light any other possible contamination that may have lasting
effects," he said.
Bennett said that his staff was told by the Pentagon in initial
inquiries that "the records are going to be very hard to find. They
are very old. Where they have been put and how many of them have been
preserved and so on are issues that they can't give me a quick answer
on."
He added, "That means, let's pursue it to the point that we can get an
answer. If, indeed, the record doesn't exist anymore, then obviously
nothing can be done. But we need to know that definitively instead of
just having a quick read to say, well, they're going to be hard to
find."
Bennett said he expects full cooperation from the Pentagon. "It's
certainly in the best interest of the Pentagon to be open about an
issue like this."
Bennett also said problems with past tests do not necessarily lead him
to distrust current Army assurances about such things as the safety of
the destruction of chemical arms stored at Tooele Army Depot.
"The military mentality of the '50s and '60s was different than it is
now with respect to these issues. They believed strictly in a
need-to-know basis, and on their scope nobody needed to know," he
said.
Although he didn't include it in his letter to Perry, Bennett said he
will also seek full disclosure about chemical and biological warfare
tests in Utah - for which only partial information has been released
through the years.
"As long as we're searching for records, we might as well search for
all of them. It would be just as easy to look for chemical and
biological records," he said.
An Army document last year said 12,000 chemical arms field tests had
been conducted in Utah during the Cold War, or about 10 a week.
Deseret News probes and other sources estimate about 2,500 germ
warfare tests also occurred during the period.
"These were very serious things that were done, and we need to know
the extent of them to understand the extent of the health hazard,"
Bennett said.
He also noted that his request would dovetail well with continuing
investigations by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee into
radiation experiments on Americans, which its chairman, John Glenn,
D-Ohio, has been conducting.
"I am a member of that committee, and will use it as leverage if
necessary," he said. |
