May 2023

In the 1950s a troubling concern was whether an atomic detonation could unintentionally be initiated in the case of an accident–as might occur when a bomber crash lands–and there were questions regarding the biological effects of plutonium dispersal, if such an accident were to occur. Safety testing was conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) […]

What qualifies as a “cover-up?” In the summer of 1977 Gordon Eliot White, a reporter for the Salt Lake City Deseret News, discovered an unpublished National Cancer Institute report outlining leukemia rates in Utah between 1950-1969. He combined this with data on fallout from atmospheric atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) between 1951-1962,

The herds find refuge from the snow grazing on the public lands of the Great Basin Desert in Nevada. They lumber back home to Cedar City, Utah each spring in time for the arrival of newborn lambs and shearing of wool, and then depart for cool, rich mountain pasture. It is a geographic and biological

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted more than 100 atmospheric atomic detonations at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) between 1951-1962, depositing radioactive fallout downwind. It is generally assumed that the towns, ranches, and Native American communities within a roughly 150-mile radius from due north to southeast of the test site–consistent with the prevailing winds-bore

   Strontium-90 and the Restlessness of Nature In the spring of 1953, officials from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), military officers, and scientists affiliated with the RAND Corporation met in Santa Monica, California. They confronted a conundrum. Radioactive debris from Ivy Mike, the world’s first thermonuclear detonation, was missing. Ten megatons (10,000 kilotons) of