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) between 1955-1958, including five shots during the Plumbbob series of 1957, and in 1963 at the Tonopah Test Range in central Nevada to answer such questions.
Safety testing contributed to more robust fail-safe systems in America’s atomic weapons stockpile. But there were drawbacks. Indeed, safety testing spread plutonium far and wide. One truism of the atomic age is that things, energetic things, migrate farther than generally anticipated.
Project 57 in April of 1957 was one such effort. Designation as a “safety test,” Annie Jacobsen argues, was intended to hide from the public the fact it entailed plutonium dispersal and potentially quite the opposite of “safe.” Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. Released into nature it is not going anywhere anytime soon. It is also fiendishly radiotoxic if inhaled or ingested. “Plutonium is the darling and the demon of the nuclear age,” Kristen Iversen notes.
A sixteen square mile area was cordoned off for Project 57 beyond the northeast boundary of the NTS and just five miles from the secret airbase at Groom Lake–the infamous Area 51. Project 57 was conducted beyond the boundaries of the NTS, Jacobsen contends, so it could be designated a military operation and sidestep information disclosure rules, to the extent that they existed, pertaining to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a civilian governmental organization.
Over 70 beagles were placed in the contaminated area to study the effects of chronic exposure to plutonium. The menagerie also included burros, sheep, and rats in cages. Vehicles were dispersed about the desert and concrete sidewalks built to study decontamination procedures.
Later, the vehicles, equipment, protective suits, and other materials were buried onsite, a barbed-wire fence was constructed, and the area was largely forgotten for two decades.
In the spring of 1957, however, a problem arose eliciting considerable discussion within the AEC. A reporter from Los Angeles was visiting towns downwind of the NTS, asking questions, and seeking information regarding radioactive contamination. Paul Jacobs then published a story entitled “Clouds from Nevada” in The Reporter on May 16, just prior to the start of the Plumbbob series of 1957 at the NTS.
Jacobs wrote an insightful critique of AEC operations in Nevada; particularly given the lack of available information at the time. He argued the AEC failed to collect data on external gamma radiation in many places, while insisting the data illustrated no cause for alarm, even as the data collected was classified despite an overriding reason for doing so other than to avoid public oversight. From the beginning, Jacobs noted, AEC officials assured the public there was no threat to public health and yet by 1957 they were scrambling to reduce offsite fallout.
In April of 1958 Paul Jacobs published an article in The Reporter entitled “The Little Cloud That Got Away” describing a safety test at the NTS in which radioactive debris was detected in Los Angeles. Project 58 involved four safety experiments, and it was Coulomb-C on December 9 producing the cloud Jacobs described. Coulomb-C had a nuclear yield of just .5 kilotons, but the debris cloud rose to 13,000 feet while unexpectedly heading west-southwest. The problem, Jacobs stressed was, information, or the lack thereof, and he accused the AEC of downplaying the issue as they did fallout from weapons testing.
In 1971 the AEC sampled soil throughout Utah and the results illustrated levels of plutonium that could not be accounted for by open-air detonations in Nevada alone–suggesting safety testing dispersed plutonium far downwind. Of note, plutonium was higher in samples taken from major population centers including Salt Lake City and Provo.
In 1974 research again documented excess plutonium in Utah where the bulk of the state’s population resides. Lower levels were observed in southwestern Utah where external gamma radiation was consistently higher due to fallout from weapons testing. This suggested the excess plutonium was not unfissioned material from detonations but safety testing. Twelve of the 26 safety tests conducted in Nevada occurred when wind trajectories exhibited a northeasterly pattern, depositing material over north-central Utah.
The desert may be better suited to weapons testing given the lack of precipitation, but it is less ideal for plutonium dispersal experiments. Rain means greater vegetation, more stable soil, and less of a chance a contaminant will be resuspended by wind over time. The Great Basin Desert stretches from the NTS to Salt Lake City and is infamous for its winds and lack of rain. Indeed, research published in 1998 sampled soil and attic dust in areas of southern Nevada and Utah and detected excess plutonium, including to the south and west of the NTS where it was least expected.
“Thus safety tests, contrary to popular opinion, contributed significant amounts of plutonium to Nevada and Utah,” Cizdziel et al. observed. They further concluded some of the plutonium detected was due to “wind driven resuspension.”
The most radiotoxic substance in the world is migrating. This is consistent with research published in 2003 documenting a high proportion of plutonium “are retained for decades in the upper few centimeters of soil in Nevada’s desert environment,” Turner et al. note. Even when atomic yields were low or non-existent there were experiments in Nevada constituting a risk to public health.
For more information:
Jeannie Massie and Inara Gravitis, “Safety Experiments November 1955-March 1958,” Defense Nuclear Agency, 2 August 1982.
U.S. Department of Energy, “Plutonium Dispersal Tests at the Nevada Test Site,” August 2013.
Annie Jacobsen, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base (NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2011).
Kristen Iversen, Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats (NY: Crown Publishing, 2013).
Paul Jacobs, “Clouds from Nevada,” The Reporter, May 16, 1957, 10-29.
Paul Jacobs, “The Little Cloud That Got Away,” The Reporter, April 3, 1958, 18-19. See also: Paul Jacobs, “Precautions are Being Taken by Those Who Know,” The Atlantic Monthly February, 1971.
E.P. Hardy, P.W. Krey, and H.L. Volchok, “Plutonium Fallout in Utah,” AEC Health and Safety Laboratory, July 1972.
Edward P. Hardy, Jr., “Plutonium in Soil Northeast of the Nevada Test Site,” AEC Health and Safety Laboratory, July 1976.
James V. Cizdziel, Vernon F. Hodge, and Scott H. Faller, “Plutonium Anomalies in Attic Dust and Soils at Locations Surrounding the Nevada Test Site,” Chemosphere 37, no. 6 (1998): 1157-1168.
Mary Turner, Mark Rudin, James Cizdziel, and Vernon Hodge, “Excess Plutonium in Soil Near the Nevada Test Site, USA” Environmental Pollution 125, no. 2 (2003): 193-203.