SITE CHARACTERIZATION REPORT
Biological Labs and Dispersal Grids: Some of Many Land Uses
at this Unique Defense Site
|
|
Dugway Entrance
CLUI photo
|
Dugway Proving Ground is a unique defense site
that combines the microscopic world of its chemical and biological
laboratories with large-scale testing and training. The landscape
within Dugway's 800,000 secure acres of Utah desert is dotted
with several industrial and military complexes, and is latticed
with overlapping target ranges and dispersal grids.
The grounds of Dugway are used primarily by the Army and Air
Force, for smoke and obfuscant testing, chemical and biological
weapons training, detonation and dispersal research, and other
weapons and projectile experimentation. Further uses of the
facility have included chemical weapons disposal research, nuclear
reactor meltdown tests, and cosmic ray studies at the Fly's
Eye observatory.
|
|
Munitions Cryogenic Fracture Facility,
left, and the Explosive Products Facility, or "Bang
Box", right.
CLUI photo
|
Rising concerns about terrorist and "rogue
nation" use of chemical and biological weapons will likely
assure Dugway's survival through the era of base closures and
realignment. A current proposal calls for the creation of a
mock city, complete with subway, water supply and numerous buildings
to train military and law enforcement personnel in combatting
chemical and biological attacks.
|
|
The remaining structures at Dugway's
German Town.
CLUI photo by Rex Ravenelle
|
Mock cities can be found on many military training
grounds, and at least two such facilities were constructed on
Dugway during World War II. For example, "German Town"
was an assemblage of several buildings used in testing incendiary
bombs. The structures were designed by the German architect
Eric Mendelson, to exactly duplicate common building types found
in Germany. The appropriate wood for the roof beams was imported
from Murmansk, and RKO studios in Hollywood was commissioned
to oversee the construction of authentic German furnishings.
|
|
One of the Target Areas at Dugway.
Department of Defence photo
|
Though Dugway has used live biological and chemical
agents in open air tests on its ranges in the past, current
field training is done with "simulants"--inert materials
with characteristics similar to dangerous agents, according
to official reports from the revamped public affairs office.
Real agents are used in tests in the several laboratory facilities
located on the grounds of Dugway, including the new Life Sciences
Test Facility.
Due to the facilities record of secrecy and poor
public relations, suspicions about what transpires at Dugway
borders on the conspiratorial. There are unconfirmed rumours,
for example, that a Biosafety Level 3 lab has been secretly--and
illegally-- upgraded to a level 4 lab, enabling it to handle
the most dangerous biological agents on earth.
The grounds of Dugway are under the Utah Test
and Training Range (UTTR) airspace, one of the largest restricted
military training areas in the country. As a result, Dugway
is part of the complex of 2675 square miles of Department of
Defense lands in the region used for a wide variety of weapons
testing and training. This adds to the multiplicity of the land
uses at what is truly one of America's remarkable military complexes.
