A federal agency considering no-action or expanded-use alternatives for the Nevada Test Site has added another option to the list - closure of the facility.
The Department of Energy said hearings in St. George and Nevada last year found many residents wanted the facility northwest of Las Vegas closed down."We have taken some of the comments we received and added some new alternatives to study," said Nancy Harkness of DOE's Nevada Operations Office in Las Vegas. "These are things that we had not originally proposed, including the alternative that we lock the doors and walk away."
The site, about the area of Rhode Island, has been used primarily for testing nuclear weapons.
Most of the hearings were sparsely attended, but the one in St. George drew about 100 people, and most of the comments indicated that people wanted the facility closed.
Many people who lived downwind of the open-air tests of the 1950s and early 1960s believe fallout was the cause of cancer, leukemia and other diseases in those areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
The Department of Energy has been considering whether to increase defense and non-defense use of the facility, but - until the public hearings - had not considered closure.
The last announced nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site was "Divider," a device of less than 20 kilotons detonated in an underground shaft Sept. 23, 1992.
The DOE plans to conduct more public hearings later this year.