Final clean up of Clean Slate II and II at the Tonopah Test Range

Clean Slate was a nuclear weapons safety test. Basically use some high explosive to dispere plutonium. [Hey, what could go wrong.] It took place in 1963, and now in 2014, it supposedly is "clean." A mere 51 years.

To be clear here, this was not a test where the bomb went critical. More like what would happen if a bomb was accidentally dropped and the high explosive went off. What are the odds of that happening...uh well....

Palomares broken arrow

Clean Slate cleanup

Following several months of intensive field work, environmental cleanup crews have wrapped up a campaign to address contaminated equipment and debris at two historical nuclear testing locations on the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

Field crews worked throughout the summer at To nopah’s Clean Slates II and III sites, removing contaminated drums, shipping containers, debris piles, and machinery, before packaging the waste for disposal. This recent cleanup effort follows an initial campaign that took place in the late 1990s.

On December 3, 2014, Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) workers transported the Clean Slates waste to the NNSS’ low-level radioactive waste management facility for permanent disposal in an engineered disposal unit.

“This was a joint effort,” said federal EM Operat ions Manager Rob Boehlecke . “NNSS contractors, the Air Force, and Sandia National Laboratorie s all came together and executed a seamless campaign.”

The Nevada Field Office, under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration, is responsible for environmental restoration work at the NNSS and Tonopah Test Range. Restoration commitment s, processes and timelines are identified in a formal agreement between the DOE and the State of Nevada.

In early December 2014, Clean Slates waste packages were disposed at the NNSS’ Area 5
Radioactive Waste Management Complex.

Clean Slates II and III were pa rt of Operation Roller Coaster – a series of experiments in 1963 designed to test the safety of nuclear devices. Though these experiments did not result in a nuclear yield, they caused the disper sal of various surface contaminants.

Operation Roller Coaster Wiki

Clean Slate description from the TTR annual environmental report.

Clean Slates and Double Track Sites

In May and June 1963, Project Roller Coaster conducted a series of four nuclear weapons destruction tests that resulted in plutonium dispersal in surrounding soils. Three of these tests were conducted within the boundaries of TTR, the fourth was conducted on the NTTR just west of TTR.

originally posted by: gariac
Clean Slate was a nuclear weapons safety test. Basically use some high explosive to dispere plutonium. [Hey, what could go wrong.] It took place in 1963, and now in 2014, it supposedly is "clean." A mere 51 years.

To be clear here, this was not a test where the bomb went critical. More like what would happen if a bomb was accidentally dropped and the high explosive went off. What are the odds of that happening...uh well....

I recently watched this again. I have a good copy, but it is on Youtube if anyone is interested. Hey, it's narrated by Adam West, so you know it's gotta be good!
Nuclear Rescue 911 - Broken Arrows & Incidents


Take note, the link is part 1 of 6. And I am betting there are undocumented Broken Arrow events that aren't covered in this documentary.

Do you know what the status is of this area, about 7.5 miles NW of Groom Lake?
37°19'8.87"N, 115°54'21.48"W

I cannot remember the details, I have it marked on GE as "Alpha Contaminated Area", and recall it being a spot where plutonium was dispersed?

originally posted by: FosterVS
Do you know what the status is of this area, about 7.5 miles NW of Groom Lake?
37°19'8.87"N, 115°54'21.48"W

I cannot remember the details, I have it marked on GE as "Alpha Contaminated Area", and recall it being a spot where plutonium was dispersed?

That is Project 57. I've had a hard time finding any document indicating it is fully cleaned up. I believe they are just monitoring it.

DRI Project 57 report

a reply to: FosterVS

As an aside, Adam West is an occasional visitor to Alamo NV. He has a house (maybe ranch) in Idaho, and Alamo is where he often spends the night. His autographed photo is in the Windmill Ridge.

That film was worth the watch. I only knew about half of those broken arrows. They must have removed the copyright notice when uploading the film to youtube, but it looks like the early 1970s at the latest Bush II and Obama have greatly reduced the number of warheads. The highly enriched nuclear material was supposely turned into nuclear power plant fuel. My only complaint about the film was given the low resolution of youtube and the old footage, it was tough to tell was what stock footage and what was CG or whatever was done in the 1970s.

National Atomic Test Museum
The National Atomic Test Museum has sanitized videos of the cleanup of broken arrow events. Went I saw them, they were at the old North Las Vegas offsite facility for the "reading room" and were on VHS. I assume they exist in some form at the new reading room in the same building as the NATM.

I'm pretty sure the DOE footage of the Yuba CIty broken arrow event was black and white. I managed to track down the location at one time and found it was on private land. The DOE footage on the Thule event was incredibly boring unless you are into bulldozers going back and forth. Regarding Palomares, the US paid the equivalent amount of money to the farmers for the tomatoes that they would grow there during the cleanup. The area still isn't fully decontaminated:
BBC on the Palomares broken arrow

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: FosterVS

That film was worth the watch. I only knew about half of those broken arrows. They must have removed the copyright notice when uploading the film to youtube, but it looks like the early 1970s at the latest Bush II and Obama have greatly reduced the number of warheads. The highly enriched nuclear material was supposely turned into nuclear power plant fuel. My only complaint about the film was given the low resolution of youtube and the old footage, it was tough to tell was what stock footage and what was CG or whatever was done in the 1970s.

According to IMDB it shows a release date of 2001. Seems way too cheesy for 2001. Same company produced one of my all time favorites, "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" narrated by none other than William Shatner.

Some scary reading here:
en.wikipedia.org...
Especially the "nuclear weapon was not recovered" ones.

"Plutonium Dispersal Tests at the Nevada Test Sites"
www.nv.energy.gov...
Some good info about the tests.

A community meeting regarding this clean up to be held on 12/12/2017.
flyer

Doing the math, that is less than a cubic yard per truck. (0.83) So don't expect a dirt hauler.