Nevada blast put on hold indefinitely
Residents fear 700 tons of explosives could kick up radiation

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The planned detonation of 700 tons of conventional explosives in the Nevada desert next month was postponed indefinitely Friday because of fears over the possible spread of radiation.
The detonation site for the blast, known as "Divine Strake," is at the Nevada Test Site, which is 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The 1,375-square-mile swath of land in southern Nevada is where the United States tested many of its nuclear weapons before President George H.W. Bush signed a testing moratorium in 1992.

The plan was to detonate 1.4 million pounds of fuel oil and fertilizer -- 280 times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

The prospect has drawn critics, who say the explosion could kick radiation-laced soil into the air, and conspiracists, who say the blast is a front for testing new nuclear weapons.

There is no indication if or when the blast will take place.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a branch of the Department of Energy that operates the test site, initially gave the go-ahead for the test, saying there is "no radioactively contaminated soil in the vicinity of the detonation site."

The agency said Friday night it would withdraw its "finding of no significant impact" related to the test.

It said it wanted to clarify its earlier statement and provide further information on background radiation in the soil.

Background radiation is relatively constant low-level radiation from artificial and environmental sources such as cosmic rays and building materials.

Agency spokesman Darwin Morgan said lots of soil in the Northern Hemisphere has some level of background radiation.

Natural sources like uranium ore or radon can cause it, as can atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.

Prediction: Dust cloud two miles high
Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah, a Democrat, has long been a critic of the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency's plans for Divine Strake.

"I was greatly concerned, and expressed as much to the director of DTRA," Matheson said. "I advised him to put all the health and safety data out on the table so that people's fears about being once again exposed to radioactive contamination could be addressed.

"I am very pleased to see that these agencies have acted on my advice."

The planners had hoped to dig a huge pit on a hillside, fill it with the explosives and detonate them to see if the blast would destroy an 1,110-foot tunnel directly beneath the pit.

The Pentagon predicted the explosion could send a cloud of dust two miles high into the atmosphere.

The blast was supposed to be an experiment on how better to attack underground targets like the bunkers used by North Korea and Iran to protect their nuclear facilities.

Earlier this month, the blast was pushed from June 2 to June 23 because Native Americans and other groups sued to stop the blast because of environmental concerns.

The Native Americans also claim they are the true owners of the Nevada Test Site land.

The specter of nuclear-laden dust is a sensitive subject for those living downwind of the test range in Nevada and Utah, where generations of people have dealt with health problems blamed on fallout from above-ground nuclear tests in the 1950s.

The word "strake" used in the experiment's name is a nautical term, referring to planking extending along the length of a ship.