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The eight tests spewed potentially lethal doses of radiation into the night skies above Dugway Proving Ground, the site of dozens of open-air chemical, biological and radioactive tests during the Cold War, according to a copyright story in Sunday's Deseret News.
Aircraft Testing: Documents show the tests were ordered because the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission were trying to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft and decided they should assess the hazards of a runaway-reaction meltdown in an airplane reactor.
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 Dugway because it was big enough to track the clouds for 20 miles without coming near civilization.
Air Force officials, in designing an atomic plane it knew would not fly, simulated nuclear reactor meltdowns in Utah's west desert during 1950s tests, according to a newspaper.
The eight tests spewed potentially lethal doses of radiation into the night skies above Dugway Proving Ground, the site of dozens of open-air chemical, biological and radioactive tests during the Cold War, according to a copyright story in Sunday's Deseret News.
Documents obtained by the newspaper through the Freedom of Information Act showed radiation clouds were tracked by sensors placed up to 20 miles downwind and across a 210-square-mile area at Dugway.
But the clouds traveled beyond that. When last detected, they were spreading toward U.S. 40 -- now Interstate 80. The town of Knolls, Utah, and Utah-Nevada border community of Wendover may have fallen in their path.
Worse Than TMI: The newspaper estimated, based on government figures, that total amount of radiation released by the tests was 14 times more than the near meltdown of a reactor at Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pa., in 1979.
"It is large enough to be significant, but it's not the worst thing they've ever done," said Daniel Hirsch, former director of a nuclear policy institute at the University of California-Santa Cruz.
His assessment is typical. Several scientists say the releases were probably excessive, likely were useless given the program they were used for, and may have unwittingly endangered citizens.
Hirsch, for example, says the tests may have caused an extra "tens to hundreds" of cases of cancer downwind.
Others say the tests, conducted on a remote portion of the desert military reservation, posed virtually no public danger.
Activists are upset that yet more secret tests at Dugway have been revealed. Thousands of other secret radiological, chemical and germ warfare experiments have been revealed there in recent years.
"It makes you wonder what all did happen out there," said Preston J. Truman, president of the military watchdog group Downwinders.
Aircraft Testing: Documents show the tests were ordered because the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission were trying to develop a 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 were unfeasible.
Not only would an atomic jet blast out radioactive exhausts, the leaden engine shielding needed to protect crews from radiation would be so heavy that the plane would never get off the ground.
"The program was stupid, so the tests were stupid," Metzger said.
Nevertheless, the Air Force decided it would burn portions of the reactor fuel in high-temperature furnaces and then blow it into the atmosphere on windy nights. The cloud would then be tracked and measured downwind.
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 Dugway because it was big enough to track the clouds for 20 miles without coming near civilization.
The problem, of course, was that the winds don't know distance and the clouds carried beyond the outside monitors.
The Night Was Right: The first of the larger tests was held the night of Aug. 5, 1959, under clear skies and with a north-northwest wind of 24 miles an hour. The Air Force argued that it wanted a breezy night to determine the worst-case scenario in the event of a reactor meltdown.
Seven additional tests were conducted at night under similar circumstances "to obtain data required to establish the upper limits of the possible hazards of a nuclear accident of the meltdown type."
Based on figures in the documents, the Deseret News estimated the tests released approximately 215.5 curies of radiation into the atmosphere. Three Mile Island, by comparison, released 15. A curie is a standard measure of radioactive decay.
Scientists disagree how dangerous the tests were to the public.
Richard Wilson, a Harvard physics professor who specializes in nuclear reactor safety, believes little or no risk occurred -- nor would any persist today.
Even so, Roland Finston, a retired health physicist from Stanford University, said "It's not a trivial release."
Copyright Salt Lake Tribune Oct 10, 1994