The Defense Threat Reduction Agency informed Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., that environmental studies needed to move the Divine Strake test to the New Mexico missile range would delay the test too long.
Domenici said DTRA informed him the test will not be moved to a location other than Nevada. A spokeswoman for the agency could not be reached.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency proposes detonating 700 tons of explosives above a tunnel on the test site to help it make computer models to predict ground shaking and tunnel damage to perfect bunker busting weapons.
“I understand that keeping these tests in Nevada is the best choice from a technical perspective,” Domenici said. “Moving the test to White Sands would have taken years and delayed development of an ability to predict damage to deeply buried targets like tunnels and bunker busters. Both are increasingly being used by our potential adversaries.”
The test was originally scheduled at the Nevada Test Site last June but was postponed until next spring at the earliest after concerns were raised about the safety of the detonation.
Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Jim Matheson raised concerns that soil contaminated by past nuclear tests could become airborne and spread downwind. A Nevada American Indian tribe and a group of Utah Downwinders - individuals sickened by their exposure to fallout from Cold War tests - have sued to block the test.
“We're in the process of working on completing the environmental assessment, which will tell us if the test site . . . can be a safe location for the experiment to be conducted,” said Darwin Morgan, spokesman for the Nevada Test Site.
Morgan said he did not know when the analysis would be available for public comment.
The explosive mixture would be similar to the chemicals used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building, only 280 times larger. It would be nearly 50 times larger than the biggest known U.S. conventional weapon and comparable to small nuclear weapons.
Originally, Defense Department budget documents said that the test would help war planners choose the smallest possible nuclear weapon to destroy buried and fortified targets, but the Pentagon later said that the inclusion of the word "nuclear" in the document was a mistake.
