An Indian tribe and several nuclear fallout "downwinders" want a federal court to halt plans for a huge non-nuclear blast that's expected to generate a mushroom cloud over the Nevada desert.
A Reno-based lawyer representing four members of the Western
Shoshone tribe and two non-Indian residents of Utah calls the
planned "Divine Strake" blast a worst nightmare come true for
downwinders.
He says detonating a 700-ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb
at the Nevada Test Site will stir up radioactive fallout left from
100 aboveground and 828 underground nuclear weapons tests conducted
from 1951 to 1992.
The lawsuit filed in U-S District Court in Las Vegas names
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the chiefs of the two federal
agencies planning the blast.
No comment yet from the Defense Department or test planners.
But Test Site officials have said the blast won't be near where
nuclear testing was done -- and shouldn't kick up surface
contamination.
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