When the wind was blowing at night - the perfect time to test the worst-case scenario - the Air Force conducted what amounted to eight intentional meltdowns of small nuclear reactors in the Utah desert in 1959.
Resulting radiation clouds were tracked by sensors placed up to 20 miles downwind and across a 210-square-mile area at Dugway Proving Ground, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.But the clouds traveled beyond that. When last detected, they were spreading toward U.S. 40 (now Interstate 80), the major highway between Utah and northern California. The communities of Wendover and Knolls may have been in the paths of some clouds.
The total amount of radiation released by the tests was 14 times more than the infamous Three Mile Island reactor accident, a near-meltdown. But it was more than a million times less than the huge Chernobyl reactor plant meltdown in the Ukraine.
"It is large enough to be significant, but it's not the worst thing they've ever done. The atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) was much worse," said Daniel Hirsch, former director of a nuclear policy institute at the University of California-Santa Cruz.
His opinion is typical of many scientists interviewed, who say tests used radiation amounts that were probably larger than necessary, may have been useless because they were for a useless program and may have unwittingly endangered Utahns.
Hirsch, for example, says the tests might have caused an extra "tens to hundreds" of cases of cancer downwind.But some scientists say the tests posed virtually no public danger because they were remote and used relatively small quantities of radioactive materials that were spread thin.
Activists are upset that yet more secret tests at Dugway are involuntarily emerging. Thousands of other secret radiological, chemical and germ warfare ex-per-iments have been revealed there in recent years.
"It makes you wonder what all did happen out there," said Downwinders President Preston J. Truman.
The beginning
Documents say the tests were ordered because the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission were trying to develop nuclear-powered aircraft - and decided they should assess the hazards of a runaway-reaction meltdown in an airplane reactor.
Critics - such as retired biochemist H. Peter Metzger, who has studied the program - say the military had long known that such airplanes would need so much shielding to protect crews from radiation that they would be too heavy to fly.
They would also emit radioactive exhaust. But Congress kept the program alive anyway. "The program was stupid, so the tests were stupid," Metzger said.
But to continue research and simulate a meltdown, the Air Force decided to burn portions of reactor fuel in high-temperature furnaces. Forced air would blow the resulting radiation to the winds. Radiation clouds would be tracked downwind and deposits measured.
The first series of tests occurred in 1958 near Arco, Idaho - but were tracked only 5 miles downwind. In 1959, larger tests were moved to the Army's Dugway base because it was big enough to allow measuring clouds for 20 miles downwind without coming near civilization.
The main test area was a roadless, barren salt flat described as having only sparse pickleweed growing.
The Air Force said it wanted the tests to show how meltdown radiation would disperse, how much of the radioactive fuel would be released to the atmosphere, how large particles would be and what biological and ecological effects would occur.
The Dugway tests
At midnight on Aug. 5, 1959, the first test occurred under clear skies with a temperature of 75 degrees and the wind blowing an average 24 miles an hour toward the north-northwest.
It and seven more tests that followed were conducted only at night when a steady wind was blowing - because radiation could travel farthest under those conditions. Documents said that was needed "to obtain data required to establish the upper limits of the possible hazards of a nuclear accident of the meltdown type."
The furnace was placed on a pad near Granite Mountain. Inside was material that had been freshly irradiated at a reactor in Idaho. It was then placed inside the lead-shielded furnace and shipped to Dug-way. After the test, the furnace and leftover reactor fuel would be returned to Idaho for burial.
The fuel had been irradiated in such a way as "to provide an inventory of the biologically hazardous isotopes that are found in abundance in an operational aircraft," documents said.
Experimenters were most interested in 11 such isotopes (radioactive forms of elements), ranging from strontium-90 to cesium-137, iodine-131 and barium-140.
The furnace was ignited, and radioactive iodine-131 began spreading away almost immediately. After 15 minutes, the reactor fuel was molten - and was kept that way for another 13 minutes as parts of all the other isotopes vaporized.
About 450 sampling stations that were spread up to 20 miles downwind across a fan-shaped area (see map on B1) measured how much radiation was dropping where, how big particles were and what directions they spread. Some dogs and rats were also exposed for study.
The same procedure was followed at the same place and under similar conditions for other tests on Aug. 10; Sept. 8, 12, 18 and 30; and Oct. 24 and 25.
Three other tests also occurred but reportedly released no radiation to the atmosphere. All the furnace exhaust from them was captured for measurement and filtered before release.
The results
The Air Force, as desired, was able to figure out averages for how much of different isotopes would vaporize in a meltdown.
It figured, for example, that 19 percent of iodine-131 would escape. The source fuel cells used in the tests originally had a total of 126.1 curies of iodine-131. The 19 percent it figured was released totalled 23.96 curies - or about 60 percent more iodine radiation than was released by Three Mile Island. The release fraction for other isotopes was as small as 2 percent.
The tests had started with 2,412.04 curies of the 11 isotopes the Air Force studied. Based on what the Air Force figured to be average release fractions, the Deseret News calculated that 215.57 curies of total radiation were released.
Other findings included that the vast majority of particles released were smaller than 10 microns - meaning released gases were considered an aerosol, which could travel much farther than if it consisted of heavy particles.
In one test, jet fuel was also burned near the furnace - as would happen in an airplane crash. The Air Force found that about half of the released radioactive iodine attached itself to the smoke and spread with it.
It also found that maximum concentrations of radiation remained within 8 feet of the ground as the cloud traveled.
University of Utah teams also dug up 6-inch soil samples three months after the tests and found 90 percent of the deposited radioactivity remained in the top 2 inches.
No results on how test animals fared was ever released. An Energy Department history says the University of Rochester, which was in charge of biological portions of the tests, reported problems with the data collected that prevented their use.
Also, tests found that the further from the furnace, the less radiation was deposited. The cloud also tended to widen with distance and in some tests was possibly headed toward Wendover (about 50 miles away) or Knolls (40 miles away), and definitely toward the US-40 highway.
No long-term study of the area affected was planned.
How dangerous?
Scientists disagree how dangerous the test were to the public. Some say virtually no risk resulted, while others say it may have been significant.
Dr. Richard Wilson, a Harvard physics professor who specializes in nuclear reactor safety, believes little or no risk occurred - nor would any persist today.
"I doubt they violated any standards at the time," he said. "In the early days, nuclear power plants released about that much in a year - although they no longer do. They didn't cause any real trouble."
He added about lingering isotopes from the tests in the desert, "You likely won't detect any of them now anywhere. . . . They would have been swamped by (radiation from) Chinese atmospheric testing."
Metzger, the retired chemist/nuclear energy historian - who is often critical of similar testing, also said, "These are all very small numbers. You couldn't do testing with that much today because of all the laws . . . but it's nothing to get too excited about."
But Hirsch, from UC-Santa Cruz, said, "For me to consider this insignificant, the amounts would have had to be in the level of millicuries - or thousandths of curies. But it is in the level of curies and hundreds of curies."
He said, "They could have done the same thing with much smaller amounts or even used surrogate materials that are less dangerous." At least, he said, releases were much smaller than if the Air Force had actually melted down an entire airplane reactor instead of just a portion of a fuel cell.
Roland Finston, a retired health physicist from Stanford University, added, "It's not a trivial release. But because of where it was, it was probably of minor consequence acutely (in the short term)."
Finston noted that the source amounts of radiation used before release in Utah were only a millionth of what modern power-plant reactors use. He also said they were about a thousandth of the amount used in the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Over the long term, he said some material could cause problems depending on how much entered the food chain but guessed, "The area now might be a little `hotter' than other areas, but because of world nuclear fallout I would guess it's not by much."
Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, who was director of health physics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said he was also concerned about some long-persistent isotopes used in the test that could get into the desert food chain.
"Strontium-90 has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning that 30 years or so later now, half of it would still be around," he said. But only small amounts (about a half curie) were released and scattered over a large area.
Hirsch said even small doses of strontium-90 and iodine-131 can cause big problems.
"Strontium is a `bone-seeker.' Because of its chemistry, it mimics calcium and can replace it in bones. If it is ingested, it can concentrate in the bones and cause cancer.
"Strontium stays around and can continue to be resuspended in dust. It can remain toxic for 600 years and is very potent. So it's not only what happened the day of the test but also the danger that persists," he said.
Also, he said iodine-131 concentrates in the thyroid gland, "so quite small doses can cause big problems" - and can be problematic if cows eat grass contaminated with it and children drink the milk.
Hirsch said his off-the-top-of-his head guess - based on the amount of radiation released and the potential downwind population - is "that the amounts are sufficient for some tens or hundreds of cases of cancer" through the years.
Even if scientists say amounts were relatively small, Truman with the activist group Downwinders said, "That's not the point. They shouldn't be releasing that kind of stuff. Anytime you release this stuff around where people may be, it's dangerous.
"If you're looking at developing a model on how this stuff will act, you don't need to use 215 curies - you could use a lot less."
What now?
Truman said he plans to ask a state advisory committee on radiation to further explore what happened with the tests and why the state apparently never heard about them.
"My biggest concern is that you had to dig to find this out instead of them telling the state about it - especially when the state asked Dugway for all documents about radiation testing," Truman said.
"It's another example of how careless agencies have been in the past and how important it is to keep a close eye on everything in the future."
The disclosure also comes as President Clinton has created the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to explore such tests during the Cold War.
A staffer at that committee noticed a mention of the tests and tipped the Deseret News about them - which used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain detailed documents about them.
The panel is expected to review the tests as part of its work. But that group has focused more on medical tests that intentionally targeted people, rather than weapons tests that may have affected people without specifically targeting them.
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Additional Information
How bad was it?
Radioactive Release Curies Released
Utah "meltdowns" 215.57
Three Mile Island accident 15
Amount of radiation Madam 1
Curie was exposed to (causing her death)
"Gareen Run" incident at
Hanford, Wash. (Nuclear bomb plant) 1 million
Chemobyl reactor meltdown millions
Source: Deseret News interviews with nuclear physicists
Definition:
Half=life is the time required for the disapperance of one-half of the original substance undergoing radioactive decay.
Example: After 28 years, half the released amount of Strontium (with a half-life of 28 years) would still exist.
How much was released?
Dugway Meltdown-1959
Isotope Half-Life Amount released (in caries)
Iodine-131 8.1 Days 23.96 0.0000000000002 curies per
milliliter of air is the
allowable limit for the public
Cesium-137 26.6 years 0.395
Ruthenium-103 41.0 days 28.82
Zirconium-95 63.0 days 14.1
Strontium-90 28.0 years 0.446
0.00000000000003 curies per
milliliter of air is the allowable limit for the public
Strontium-89 54.0 days 42.13
Tellurium-127 90.0 days 0.29
Tellurium-129 33.0 days 1.956
Cerium-141 32.0 days 44.55
Cerium-144 290.0 days 10.08
Barium-140 12.8 days 48.84
Total: 215.57 Curies
Source: Deseret News calculations based on Air Force documents
NOTE:
Scientist working with millicurie levels (thousandth of a curie) must to put the radiation source in lead containers using long poles for protection.