Bush's denial of plans for Iran hit wrong chord before Test Site blast
By LAUNCE RAKE
Las Vegas Sun
11-APR-06

LAS VEGAS -- Critics are scoffing at the Bush administration's claims that its massive test blast scheduled for June at the Nevada Test Site is unrelated to the effort to build a nuclear bunker-buster.

"It is abundantly clear, at least to me, that the military has not given up the idea of a nuclear penetrator," said Christopher Hellman, a policy analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. He noted that Congress last year killed funding for the nuclear bunker-busting program.

Nonethleless, "they want it, and they are going to do as much as they can to move that program further along until they feel the situation in Washington is more favorable," Hellman said.

The criticism came as a report in The New Yorker magazine said the administration had made contingency plans to strike at Iran's nuclear program with such a tactical nuclear weapon. [... continues - see link above...]

It looks like cooler heads have prevailed in the case of the 700-ton explosion planned for June 2 at the Nevada Test Site (see our previous post).

[...]

Today we learned that Nevada's Environmental Protection Division has halted the Divine Strake conventional explosives test until the National Nuclear Security Administration can demonstrate that the massive explosion will comply with state and federal air quality standards. Hey, there’s a good idea.

They’re also asking that hazardous pollutants be identified before the blast and tracked once it occurs.

Environmental officials halt test site explosion
Massive, non-nuclear blast had been slated for June 2
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Nevada environmental officials have halted a massive, non-nuclear explosion scheduled for June 2 at the Nevada Test Site until the federal agency hosting the blast shows it will comply with air quality standards and that hazardous particles can be tracked, letters released Tuesday reveal.

The National Nuclear Security Administration "is prohibited from allowing this test to proceed until authorization from NDEP (the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection) has been received," the state division Administrator Leo Drozdoff wrote in a letter sent Friday to test site manager Kathleen Carlson.

The letter refers to an April 28, 2005, request to Carlson from the state Bureau of Air Pollution Control.

"To date, the NNSA has not responded to this information request. NNSA is reminded that no approval was received. ... In order to conduct this test, NNSA needs to provide all information and demonstrations required," Drozdoff wrote.

Kevin Rohrer, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration's Nevada Site Office, said his agency will provide the requested information to the state "within two weeks."

[... continued - see link above ...]