Legacy of Radiation Illness Stirs Objection to Nevada Bomb Test

"Now, will every single microscopic atom stay on the test site?" he continued. "No, you can't do that. But the bulk of the dust will remain on the test site."

Defense officials have looked at moving the test to another site, but they say the alternatives would cost $100 million and take three years of planning. Holding it in Nevada could be done this year for $5 million.

"My personal feeling is, rather than have people completely discombobulated, like they're doing, it would be better to have it somewhere else," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said. "If it costs $100 million more, that's better than having people scared to death and worrying they're going to suffer the same afflictions their families did."

Besides citing health concerns, Hager's lawsuit also charges the test would be held improperly on tribal land, and that the government is really seeking to test the effects of a nuclear bomb.

James Tegnelia, director of the DTRA, has acknowledged there is now no way to transport a single conventional bomb of the type Divine Strake will test. Also, budget documents from 2005 and 2006 say Divine Strake will simulate a "low yield nuclear weapon ground shock environment." But the agency has since disavowed the word "nuclear," and DTRA officials said they have no plans to test nuclear weapons in the future.

Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), whose district includes St. George, is not convinced.

"There's no such thing as a 700-ton conventional weapon," Matheson said in an interview. "Make no mistake about it, there's an effort to move into creating new nuclear weapons."

Matheson's family suffered personally from fallout, and he is just as skeptical as some of his constituents about Defense Department assurances. Matheson's father, former Utah governor Scott Matheson, died of multiple myeloma, a rare cancer that can be linked to radiation exposure.

Like others in southern Nevada, he speaks bitterly of declassified documents that show the government did not detonate nuclear bombs when the wind blew toward Las Vegas. They waited until the wind blew toward St. George.

"The people in Utah have long memories," Matheson said. "They've been lied to before. The people in Utah are so patriotic, they're among the most supportive of the government in the nation, and the government has taken advantage of that. So I'm always skeptical when someone tells me not to worry about the testing of weapons."