Divine Strake in New Mexico: 

In the fall of 2006, DTRA considered conducting Divine Strake, a simulation of a low-yield nuclear blast involving 700 tons of ammonium-nitrate and fuel oil, at the White Sands Missile Range.  On November 15, 2006, Pentagon planners announced that, after weighing alternative sites in New Mexico, Utah, California and Indiana, they decided to put the Nevada Test Site back on track for testing Divine Strake in 2007.    

Divine Strake could have been conducted at one of a number of contaminated locations at the White Sands Missile Range that have accumulated manmade radiological substances from atomic and munitions testing and laboratory releases since the 1940's.      

There are six sources of radioactive contamination to New Mexico's air and soil:

• Trinity Test

• ANFO tests at radioactive Trinity Site

• Plowshare tests: Gasbuggy and Gnome

• Depleted Uranium (DU) Experiments

• Laboratory (LANL) releases and Cerro Grande fire

• Fallout from U.S. nuclear testing

 Trinity test

 On July 16, 1945, the world's first nuclear weapon was tested in New Mexico at the Trinity Site. The atomic blast created a 40,000 foot-high radioactive cloud that deposited fallout over much of central New Mexico. Located at the northwest corner of the White Sands Missile Range, the Trinity Site is still contaminated by radionuclides from the atomic blast and enclosed by a fence [photo] at a 1600-foot-radius from ground zero.  

ANFO tests at radioactive Trinity Site  

In the mid-1970s, White Sands Missile Range, or WSMR, was chosen by the US Army and DTRA's predecessor organization, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), as the site for a number of large conventional explosive tests similar to Divine Strake.    

The White Sands Missile Range covers an area of about 4,000 square miles in a semi-arid region of south-central New Mexico.
 
 

During an 18-year period ending in 1993, the Defense Nuclear Agency conducted eight large-scale, ammonium-nitrate fuel-oil (ANFO) explosions designed to simulate various effects of nuclear blasts at WSMR.  The first test in the series, dubbed 'Dice Throw,' almost identical in size to the proposed Divine Strake test, 'rattled windows in towns located 25-35 miles away and sent a large gray cloud over the nearby San Andreas Mountains.' 

Astonishingly, the Defense Nuclear Agency chose to conduct several of its ANFO explosions in very close proximity to the Trinity Site. Dice Throw (1976) was detonated at a distance of 'less than three miles' and Minor Scale (1985) - the largest conventional explosives test in world history (known outside the USSR) - was set off two miles from the atomic blast site.   

One of the dark secrets of testing at the White Sands Missile Range is that the ANFO tests conducted by the Defense Nuclear Agency likely ejected radioactive soils ten thousand feet (or higher) into the atmosphere in New Mexico. Sadly, the Defense Nuclear Agency's successor, DTRA, hasn't learned any lessons from the past. DTRA is planning to conduct the Divine Strake test at a blast site in the Nevada Test Site only four miles from several above ground nuclear detonations. Last June, DTRA never sampled the soil at the Divine Strake blast site in Nevada although they were prepared to go ahead with the test anyway.  When citizens questioned the rigor of DTRA's 'finding of no significant impact' issued last May, the agency postponed the test, rescinded its finding of no significant impact, and announced it was looking to conduct the test elsewhere.  White Sands and other sites were eventually ruled out based on cost; DTRA said it would cost $5 million to conduct Divine Strake in Nevada and $100 million to test it elsewhere. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wrote in a press release (Feb. 7, 2007): 'We were deeply disappointed to learn DTRA’s conclusion that relocating DIVINE STRAKE would require an additional $100 million and was, therefore, cost prohibitive. This is perplexing since during my staff’s April 26, 2006, visit to DIVINE STRAKE’s site, they were told by representatives of the Department that moving the experiment’s location would cost approximately $30 million.'

Similar to the ANFO tests at WSMR, the Divine Strake test has been described in budget documents as a simulation of the effects of a low-yield nuclear blast. DTRA's intention behind the Divine Strake test is to identify the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities. 

Plowshare tests: Gasbuggy and Gnome  

After Trinity, New Mexico was home to two underground nuclear tests, both part of the Atomic Energy Commission's Plowshare program for 'peaceful uses of nuclear energy.'    

Gasbuggy (1967), a 29-kiloton nuclear blast intended to stimulate the flow of natural gas from 'tight' formation gas fields, was conducted near Farmington in Rio Arriba County, N.M. Six years earlier, on Dec. 10, 1961, Gnome, a 3-kiloton blast designed to advance scientific and industrial knowledge, was detonated southeast of Carlsbad, N.M. The test accidentally vented a radioactive gas cloud containing Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 that traveled northwards. The AEC closed all roads in the test area 25 miles from Carlsbad for more than three hours until the radioactivity 'died down,' the agency told the press.  Radioactive fallout drifted as far as Omaha, Nebraska. 

Depleted Uranium tests 

Although Trinity, Gnome and Gasbuggy were the only atomic fission bomb tests conducted in New Mexico, the use of radiological materials in conventional munitions tests and laboratory experiments by DTRA and its 'legacy organizations' has persisted through the present.   

Since the Trinity test, munitions testing and experiments involving depleted uranium (DU) and thorium have occurred at military testing sites throughout the state.   Since the early 1970s, DU munitions have been used in testing at WSMR although evidence of such use, limited to brief mention in environmental studies and impact statements, is not well publicized. While it falls short of admission, WSMR's Memorandum for All Newcomers states '...we have tested nearly every type of deployable ordinance that has been developed in America since 1945...'   (The U.S. Department of Defense has used depleted uranium for a variety of military applications since the 1970s, however it wasn't until the 1991 Gulf War that the radioactive material was used extensively in combat.) DU testing has also occurred at Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and at the Energetic Metals Research Test Center (EMRTC) at the New Mexico Institute of Mining. DU munitions are known to aerosolize upon impact into fine particles that act like a gas. The tiny particles, commonly referred to as DU dust, can be carried hundreds of miles by normal wind action, and even re-suspended or stirred up from the ground by wind or human movement.   

Laboratory (LANL) releases and Cerro Grande fire 

Testing and experimental activities since the 1940s at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) have likewise resulted in widespread dispersal of various radioactive contaminants into New Mexico's soil, air and water. LANL has disclosed that past activities have resulted in air emissions of a number of radionuclides - including Plutonium 238/239/240, Beryllium, Tritium, Uranium-235/238, Iodine-131, Cesium-137, and Strontium-90. Largely due to LANL's long-time failure to comply with environmental laws regarding stack monitoring, the quantities of radioactive substances emitted since the 1940s are not fully known however are being determined in a dose reconstruction study being carried out by the Centers for Disease Control. (Study the findings in Chapter 4 of the Interim LAHDRA Report here) 

Of concern is a recent finding that indicates plutonium emissions from LANL activities were about twice that of the Hanford site. In addition, there are a number of waste disposal sites associated with LANL from which radioactive materials on the surface can be suspended by gusty winds (10 mph or greater) or fire into the air.   

In 2000, the Cerro Grande forest fire, which encircled Los Alamos National Laboratory, burned through outdoor areas tainted with contaminated soil and vegetation. The inferno may have resuspended radioactive substances - including depleted uranium, plutonium and americium - at levels up to 135 times the yearly limit the government sets for nuclear workers' exposure. 

Since 1972 LANL and other nuclear laboratories in the state have conducted open-air DU burns that have released 'large amounts of DU oxides into the air' that were carried over ' very, very long distances...'   

Read: : Blowing Smoke - LANL is sending deadly depleted uranium into the air we breathe - A Special Report for Sun Monthly (April 2006)

and: Heavy Metal or Death Metal? Depleted Uranium Draws Criticism At Home and Abroad

Fallout from U.S. nuclear testing 

The presence of radioactive substances in New Mexico soils is not limited to the accidental or deliberate effusion of such materials by military organizations within the state. Long-lived man-made radioactive substances were deposited in New Mexico during the era of U.S. nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. The worst fallout to blanket New Mexico occurred in the early 1950s, when the Atomic Energy Commission began conducting above-ground bomb tests in Nevada. Many of the radioactive isotopes from the fallout in New Mexico, and nationwide, are present in soil, food and water supplies and still pose a health risk. 

Fig. 1. External dose to average exposed individual from tests in 1952. 
(External exposure occurs when people are exposed to radiation outside their bodies; doesn't include inhalation or food consumption. Units are mSv, millisieverts; 10 mSv=1 rem. Number of counties in each group shown in parenthesis. ) 

Fig. 2. External dose to average exposed individual from tests in 1953. 

The Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation 

Downwind from WSMR is the 720 square-mile Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation, home to about 4,000 tribal members. The Mescalero Apache Tribe is already suffering from the disturbing sonic booms that are generated during aircraft exercises on the range. The sonic booms have the potential to 'damage glass, plaster or other parts of structures...' The Tribe has been concerned that a recent proposed increase in stealth fighter activity at WSMR will have a detrimental effect on their natural resources and economy, which is heavily based on tourism. There is also concern that the chemical components of chaff fibers and flares - that would be released from the aircraft - could pose a hazard to visitors and workers at the White Sands National Monument. Wedged between the reservation and WSMR is the city of Alamogordo (population: 35,582). 

Who runs WSMR? 

WSMR, under the jurisdiction of the US Army, is overseen by NewTec, short for New Mexico Technology Group LLC, a consortium formed in 1997, owned by Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, the Computer Sciences Corporation (acquirer of Dyncorp) and TRAX International. The consortium is finishing out a nine-year, $333.6 million contract as overseer and manager of the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). Through early September, WSMR will be soliciting bids for a new ten-year, $650 million Mission Support Services contract that will begin in December 2006; the award will be announced in late October. In 2000, NewTec won an eight-year, $376 million contract from the U.S. Army to support the service's electronic testing ranges in AZ, WA, and TX. NewTec’s main office is located in Lexington Park, MD; it has a satellite office in Las Cruces, NM. The company’s annual sales are $40.8 million