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For years, reporters and anti-nuclear activists heard rumors that the
government may have tested atomic bombs in the 1950s at Utah"s Dugway
Proving Ground.
Now, once-classified documents obtained by the Deseret News may show
why such apparently false rumors spread.
The documents reveal that nuclear scientists unleashed large, secret
underground explosions at Dugway in May 1951 - and maybe at other
times - with non-atomic conventional weapons to study effects expected
from future underground atomic blasts in Nevada.
The blasts occurred about the same time Dugway was conducting
separate, smaller explosions to spread radioactive materials through
the wind to see if that could contaminate battlefield areas - which
was secret until a year ago.
In short, discussions of huge explosions conducted by the military"s
nuclear weapons experts, plus talk of other tests spreading
radioactive dust, likely caused rumors of atomic blasts in Utah.
"We had been told by some people that the government exploded an
atomic bomb at Dugway in the spring or summer of 1951," said Preston
J. Truman, president of the Downwinders watchdog group.
That"s when the other tests occurred. Truman said various people have
also reported possible atomic blasts at Dugway in May 1952 and in
1954. "We always questioned those reports. It seems more people would
have noticed," Truman said.
The Army says the rumors are false.
"I have reviewed numerous historical records at Dugway Proving Ground
and have not discovered any records of above-ground or underground
nuclear testing conducted at DPG," Dugway radiation protection officer
Clair D. McBride wrote in response to a Deseret News Freedom of
Information Act request.
He added, "I do not know of any individual (who) remembers any such
testing at DPG, and I have not observed any physical evidence (i.e.
large craters, no vegetation) of such testing."
Moreover, the official Energy Department list of atomic and nuclear
bomb tests does not include any at Dugway. It says tests occurred in
Nevada; Alamogordo, Farmington and Carlsbad, N.M.; Hattiesburg, Miss.;
Grand Valley and Rifle, Colo.; Amchitka, Alaska; and islands in the
Pacific Ocean.
The issue of possible Utah atomic tests came up again last month when
President Clinton"s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments
released some documents that seemed to suggest - but were unclear
about - possible atomic work at Dugway.
Minutes of a committee that in May 1951 was looking at the safety of
planned Nevada "ground-bursts" of atomic weapons - which create more
radioactive fallout dust than bursts high in the air - refer to tests
then being conducted at Dugway.
A member, W. Bleakney, is quoted as saying, "We had a hand in planning
some of the original tests at Dugway, but they were discontinued after
the first year, and I have not been in touch with that since it was
started again."
Later, A. Spilhaus of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, which
oversaw development of nuclear weapons, also mentioned Dugway tests
when asked if explosives alone could provide data about fallout and
craters of atomic ground-bursts.
Spilhaus said, "This is being done now at Dugway. The largest one is
320,000 pounds - that is being fired tomorrow, by the way - and this
is in very similar soft and sandy soil" compared to the soil at the
Nevada Test Site.
In response to a Deseret News Freedom of Information Act request,
Dugway released a once-classified document it found about that test on
May 22, 1951.
The Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, the military"s nuclear
weapons experts, ignited conventional explosives with the impact of
320,000 pounds of TNT (or 0.16 kiloton) that were buried 35 feet
underground at Dugway"s White Sage Flats.
The smallest of the atomic and nuclear blasts at the Nevada Test Site
had similar yields, but most were much larger.
The document notes that smaller explosions at Dugway occurred earlier
that month as part of the same experiment, 40,000 pounds of TNT on May
10 and 2,560 pounds on May 5.
It said other tests of similar magnitudes were to be conducted in
solid rock and in other types of soils.
Documents say the tests were primarily to help "in the prediction of
the detailed effects of nuclear explosions" on both above-ground and
underground structures (such as tunnels) from underground nuclear
tests.document reported results only for above-surface test structures
built at Dugway from the blasts" ground motion, dust "throwout" and
air blast. It was designed to help build safe structures at the Nevada
Test Site.
It noted the large blast "produced permanent deformation" of most
nearby test structures, and caused several to collapse. On May 29,
1951, only a week after the large conventional explosion, Dugway - in
a separate series of experiments - exploded four different shapes of
radioactive munitions on 50-foot poles to see which would best spread
contamination, according to previously released reports.
Documents obtained by the Deseret News and government investigators
over the past year have shown at least 74 tests at Dugway spread
radioactive dust and pellets to the wind between 1949 and 1953.
The non-atomic tests scattered radioactive dust to determine if
battlefield areas could be contaminated with them during wartime.
Documents say the total amount of radiation released by those tests
was 153,000 curies - or 10,000 times the 15 curies released by the
near-meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
Army and Energy Department studies say, however, that radioactive
material used, tantalum-182, had a short half-life, and therefore any
remaining traces at Dugway have long since ceased to be dangerously
radioactive. |
