Hot damn! The blast at the Nevada Test Site this summer is going to be massive, with its 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil—that diabolical mix whose power Timothy McVeigh demonstrated to the world in Oklahoma City in 1995—set off by 300 pounds of C-4 explosives; and then with its force—sheer destructive energy—burrowing an actual crater into the desert earth, shooting unto heaven's heels a nonfictional mushroom cloud 10,000 feet high, resonating at 140 decibels 14 miles from ground zero, reeking of not only dust but also devastation, and, in an instantaneous and warlike moment, heating the immediate summer air to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, and even hotter toward its hellish core.
That is, if it even comes to pass. For the event itself—a controlled non-nuclear explosion, termed Divine Strake, conducted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency—has come under intense heat from its opposition. Environmentalists are concerned that the blast will pick up embedded pockets of radioactive remnants at the site, where multiple nuclear tests were conducted in generations past, and eject them into the atmosphere. The Western Shoshone Indians fear for the purity of their sacred land (which is outside of the NTS' 1,375 square miles), and, even more inviolable, their health. And even though the federal government has put some $23 million and 10 years worth of research and overall preparation into Divine Strake—instilling them with something greater than confidence: a good conscience—it has not done enough to assure its implacable opponents, who through legal action have delayed the proposed June 2 detonation date indefinitely.
"We believe we have done enough to ensure health and safety and environmental protection," says Darwin Morgan, spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Association, a branch of the Department of Energy that's hosting the event. "Now its up to the courts to determine when Divine Strake will be conducted.
"But no sooner than June 23."