Could Millard and Beaver counties contain 'hot spots' of radioactive fallout?

When reading the below article, keep in mind that Nevada's Ely District is about the same distance from the Nevada Test Site as Millard and Beaver counties.

WILDFIRES: Shoshones: BLM must revamp plan
Tribe says use of herbicides not addressed; BLM taking concerns into consideration
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
January 27, 2001

Western Shoshones say the Bureau of Land Management needs to revamp a wildfire plan for its Ely District because it doesn't address the effects of burning areas where poisonous herbicides have been sprayed and radioactive fallout lingers.
"If the BLM isn't going to address these issues, then it needs to get out of our way so we can investigate these serious problems," said Ian Zabarte, a Western Shoshone National Council official.
But one BLM official, Curtis Tucker, who oversaw development of the fire management plan, said it can be changed to reflect the Shoshones' concerns even though the 20-year plan was finalized in December.
"If they bring up points that we seriously need to look at, then yes, we'll adjust it," he said Friday. "They raise some interesting questions about herbicide. We need to develop a map that shows areas that have been treated. That's something that's a good idea to pursue."
After a meeting with BLM officials this week, the council issued a statement expressing concern over the fire management plan adopted for the 12 million-acre Ely District.
The plan's main element lets wildfires burn naturally in designated areas, up to a certain point. But it also allows for some so-called prescribed fires, those that are purposely set to improve the health of the landscape and reduce long-term threats from catastrophic wildfires.
The council's statement, however, said the plan lacks a health-risk analysis for burning areas where chemicals used in defoliants such as Tordon have been sprayed by ranchers. Other weed-control compounds that, when burned, create harmful dioxins similar to those from the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, are not addressed.
The council's statement also notes concern for radioactive "hot spots." Trees grow in areas targeted for controlled burns that are located downwind from where atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site between 1951 and 1963.
A Western Shoshone man from Austin, Johnnie Bobb, and his wife, Bonnie, who is a research psychologist, wrote a six-page letter Thursday to the BLM's Ely Field Office, calling for a full-blown environmental impact statement instead of a less-formal environmental assessment that was drawn up for the plan.
"No one knows the amount of extent of nuclear contamination in the area surrounding the (Nevada Test Site) and Nellis Air Force Base, which tests depleted uranium bombs," according to the Bobbs' letter.
They referred to use of herbicides for controlling the spread of noxious weeds, noting that the "BLM has no way to monitor the use of herbicides by private individuals."
"Examination of the noxious weed plan cannot be separate from the analysis of the fire plan. The noxious week plan is scheduled to begin this spring. Thus, plants treated with these herbicides may be burned," the Bobbs' letter said.
In December, the Western Shoshone National Council complained that the BLM's fire management plan overlooked concerns from some tribes that it allows for incineration of thousands of acres of pinyon pine -- a traditional food source that goes back thousands of years.
The council claimed that the BLM's Ely Field Office, in preparing the plan, violated an executive order that requires all federal agencies to assess their effects on minority, low-income populations and those with subsistent lifestyles.

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Idealist's public document archives: 1. 2.

U.S. NUCLEAR tests: 128 A + 899 U in NV,
1 A in NM, 10 U (in NM, CO, AK, MS, central NV),
100+ A, U in Pacific, 3 A in S. Atlantic
(A=aboveground; U=Underground)

'The greatest irony of our atmospheric nuclear testing program is that 
the only victims of U.S. nuclear arms since World War II have been our own people.' 
- Forgotten Guinea Pigs Report, 1980

In 1986, the U.S. Dept. of Energy used the cover of the Chernobyl fallout cloud over the United States to release huge amounts of radiation into the air from a failed underground Nevada nuclear test. It was called Mighty Oak.

learn more on our global fallout page

 

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