Deseret News
Wednesday, October 5, 1994

SHEPHERD URGES FOCUS ON DUGWAY

She wants hearings in Utah on radiation tests.
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By Lee Davidson, Washington Correspondent

Rep. Karen Shepherd, D-Utah, is calling for the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to hold hearings in Utah.

She wants them to focus on 1950s experiments at Dugway Proving Ground where the Army spread radioactive pellets from high-altitude aircraft, tested "dust generators" that spewed radioactive specs and exploded radioactive metal.

Six such tests were revealed last year by the U.S. General Accounting Office. A Deseret News probe later found 27 more - and suggestions in documents that up to 600 could have occurred.

Shepherd then requested all Army documents on such tests, and was given 1,000 more pages of information. They revealed another 35 such tests - for a total of 68.

When President Clinton ordered the advisory committee formed in January to look into Cold War radiation tests, he specifically ordered it to examine the Dugway radiological tests.

Shepherd wrote the committee that "the results of these tests were quite alarming. For example, in one test a pilot dropped more than a dozen radiation pellets over a several-mile radius, many of which did not detonate and were never recovered."

Besides seeking data on such radiological tests, Shepherd has also asked Defense Secretary William Perry to declassify documents about Dugway tests on chemical and germ warfare too.

"Utah has paid a high price for its support of the Cold War," Shepherd said. "There are many questions that remain unanswered. For the sake of my constituents who may have been unwillingly been exposed during these tests, I am requesting these hearings."