FIELD REPORT
And a glimpse of what a Nuclear Test Site as tourist attraction
might be like
Five
years ago, the Center published the first edition of The Nevada
Test Site: A Guide to America’s Nuclear Proving Ground,
a book that explores this forbidden landscape in detail. Since
that time, the NTS has continued to evolve into a place where
its past seems to supercede its future. The test site can be
viewed as a sort of landscape museum, where the artifacts of
a remarkable chapter in the history of human endeavor remain,
for the most part, intact and accessible on the surface. Every
pole sticking out of the ground, every stretch of fiber optic
cable decomposing on the desert floor, and every empty concrete
pad is a vestige of a mostly untold story, the details of which
are disappearing as the old-timers take their knowledge to the
grave. It could be that in the future we may be more amazed
than we are now that a place like this existed, and we will
regret that we lost the opportunity to record the details of
this literally incredible place. The Center still follows activities
at the site, and occasionally dispatches representatives to
examine
the contextual and physical transformations there...
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Sign welcoming visitors to the
Nevada Test Site's semi-open house in January.
CLUI photo by Lize Mogel.
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The recent occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first atomic
test at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), offered an experience of
what it might be like if the test site were open to the general
public as a certified tourist attraction, a scenario that may
not be as unlikely as it sounds. To commemorate this event (the
1 kiloton shot "Able," detonated in January of 1951), the Department
of Energy sponsored a "family day" in Mercury, the principal
logistics center and the closest thing to a town on the test
site. Normally off-limits to the public, Mercury was open to
current and former employees, their families, press, and others,
including two CLUI representatives. More than 4,200 people were
expected for the day, but because of blizzard conditions in
southern Nevada, a little more than half showed up. Visitors
of all ages and of all job descriptions - nuclear physicists,
firemen, security guards - piled into Coach USA buses for transit
from the DOE headquarters in Las Vegas, to the test site. Instead
of the usual visitor processing at the point-of-entry, Gate
100, the security guards handed out commemorative badges.
At Mercury, large white tents awaited, with danishes,
coffee, the Marine Corps Brass Band (out of 29 Palms Marine
Base), and a round of speeches from various organizations associated
with the NTS. Later on, there was a Chautauqua- a historic reenactment
of Harry S. Truman establishing the Nevada Proving Ground.
Another tent held booths set up by NTS contractors
and others - Bechtel, the NTS Historical Society, the Yucca
Mountain waste repository project, DOE's Nevada Operations Office,
and Wackenhut, providing exhibits about the past, present and
future of the NTS. Souvenirs abounded: pencils, tote bags, sun
visors, all emblazoned with the NTS logo. Bechtel sold travel
mugs, t-shirts and the Bechtel Employee Cookbook. The Nevada
Test Site Historical Society sold t-shirts depicting the mushroom
clouds of historic tests, Sedan Crater mousepads, Little Boy
and Fat Man earrings, and Enola Gay key chains. They also provided
pamphlets and other literature about the planned NTS museum
in Las Vegas.
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Some of the souvenirs available at the NTS.
CLUI photo by Erik Knutzen.
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Every hour, Coach USA buses left to take visitors
to Sedan Crater, far into the forward area of the test site
(a planned stop at Frenchman's Flat, perhaps the premier attraction
on the NTS, was cancelled because the ground was too wet from
the snowstorm for the buses). The tour guide on our bus was
Don Collins, an NTS employee who works with the JTO (Joint Test
Organization), and has been at the NTS since its inception.
In 1956, according to Collins, there were only 250 employees,
and over 2,000 by 1957. Collins apparently has seen it all-
he was on the observer benches at the famed "Priscilla" atmospheric
test in 1957 (a 37 kiloton device which produced much of the
rubble on Frenchman's Flat), and was also present at Operation
Plumb Bob tests at Bikini Atoll.
As we pass signs that say "Danger, Radiation,"
people on the bus asked about current radiation hazards. Collins
answers "‚if you kiss your wife or girlfriend, she's irradiating
you, and you're irradiating her. Most people don't understand
that," and then tells us that it is perfectly safe to be on
most open areas of the NTS, as there is less ground level radiation
than in an urban parking lot. A coyote in the road causes the
line of a dozen buses to screech to a halt. Collins says that
the NTS is a great place for bird and animal watching - it is
possible to spot antelope, eagles, and coyotes.
After traversing Yucca Flat, the main testing
grounds of the site, the buses stopped at the Sedan Crater,
a 320 foot deep and 1,280 foot wide pit from the "Sedan" test,
which displaced 12 million tons of earth. Hundreds of visitors
piled onto the viewing platform, and hiked around the rim to
get the perfect shot of the massive crater, whose enormity is
incomprehensible from photographs. The largest crater on the
NTS, Sedan is a suitable monument for conveying the power of
atomic weapons. It was formed by the first Plowshare test, which
explored the possible uses of nuclear devices for peacetime
projects, such as earth moving and cratering to create harbors,
canals, and mountain passes. It it is currently the only structure
on the test site that is on the National Register of Historic
Places.
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Tourists on viewing stand overlooking
viewing platform, overlooking... Sedan Crater.
Photos Stephen Skartvedt.
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The NTS will probably never be used for nuclear
weapons testing of this magnitude again, but portions of it
remain active for weapons related tests, and would remain off-limits
should the site be served by a tour concession, as some DOE
officials have suggested it might someday. Most current experiments
are carried out under laboratory-like conditions, and among
the active facilities is the U1-A, used for underground "sub-critical"
testing. An air-inflated dome structure and several headframes
cover the entrance to a 1000 foot vertical shaft and a network
of underground tunnels, where the tests are performed. The new
JASPER program (Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research),
a nuclear weapons test simulator, is being built in Area 27,
one of the more secure sites at the NTS.
Other than these and a few other active testing
areas, the NTS is generally a quiet place, with attention now
paid to õweapons stockpile stewardship, cleanup of contamination,
and developing new uses for the site, among them tourism. Many
of the relics of former testing days dotting the landscape are
uncontaminated by radiation and are already regular stops on
the occasional tours given around the site. On the return trip
from Sedan, we saw evidence of the NTS's past in the distance
- domestic test structures from 1950s tests, subsidence craters
marked with orange fencing, and towers from which test devices
were to be lowered into deep, drilled shafts. A Los Alamos tower,
which was abandoned when large-scale underground testing stopped
in 1992, is now home to a nesting barn owl.
Back at Mercury, lunch is provided by Bechtel,
in the cafeteria, where steam tables full of chili mac, breaded
chicken fingers, greenbeans, and mashed potatoes were served.
After lunch, we took a self-guided walking tour of the town,
using pictorial maps that were given out earlier. Mercury has
many amenities that are now unused - the swimming pool, bowling
alley, and movie theater all look abandoned and in need of repair,
but the physical fitness track is well maintained. The hospital
and post office are operational, as are the color-coded, modernist
dormitory buildings containing motel-like rooms.
Our self-guided tour continued to the NTS fire
station, the emergency and rescue services hub for the entire
site. The tour of the state-of-the-art station included a look
at the specially customized ambulances and fire trucks, and
the fire extinguisher shop, used to service the 8000 fire extinguishers
on the test site.
Down the road, Wackenhut, the security contractors
on the NTS for the past 36 years, had two vehicles available
for viewing. The "Badger is an armored personnel vehicle built
on a 1-ton pickup chassis, complete with gun turret windows
and ammo boxes. These vehicles are used by perimeter guards,
and were outfitted with machine guns and rocket launchers when
nuclear devices were escorted through the test site. A surveillance
van is equipped with infra-red, zoom lens, and image enhancement
built into the telescoping, roof-mounted camera. The Wackenhut
officer demonstrated its capabilities by capturing visitors
at the distant food tent on his screen. The van is also equipped
with a microwave oven and coffee pot, especially useful on those
long, 12-hour nighttime shifts, during which, our Wackenhut
guide tells us, the nighttime patrols like to use the sophisticated
surveillance equipment to watch owls and other nocturnal animals.
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Wackenhut NTS perimeter surbeillance van on display:
observing the observers.
CLUI photo by Erik Knutzen.
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