[h=1]Beatty residents call for transparency after nuclear fire[/h] By
Kyle Roerink (
contact)
Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015 | 9:35 p.m.
[h=4]
U.S. Ecology Fire Town Hall in Beatty[/h]
Launch slideshow ?
BEATTY ? The town sits in the shadow of nuclear history ? 20 miles west of the Yucca Mountain repository and the former Nevada Test Site, home to hundreds of nuclear explosions in the last 65 years.
But when a perfect-storm disaster scenario blew through Beatty on Sunday, the 100 residents who gathered at the Beatty Community Center on Tuesday say Nye County officials failed to give them real-time updates and verification about the events, leaving many to wonder about the health and safety of their town.
...
Early Sunday morning a fire ignited in a low-level nuclear storage site in the desert 10 miles from Beatty and 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The blaze followed flash flooding that shut down the town?s escape routes: U.S. 95 and Highway 373.
...
Helicopters and other aircraft were flying 50 feet from the ground to test air quality for radiation. Support teams from the Nevada National Guard, state agencies and the federal government were also performing tests in the region throughout Sunday and Monday. While the federal and state governments say that there are no signs of high-level radiation polluting the air, residents want transparency going forward.
...
The 80-acre storage site, run by waste Company US Ecology, is home to 22 low-level nuclear storage trenches that range in size from shallow holes to chasms hundreds of feet deep and wide as football fields....
