June 21, 1998

A New Role Marketed for the Grim Nevada Test Site

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY / By VERNE G. KOPYTOFF

ERCURY, Nev.-- To visit the Nevada Test Site, the nation's primary nuclear proving ground for more than four decades, and stand near a crater blasted deep into the desert bedrock, is an exercise in silence.

The dry lake beds and thorny plains where scientists detonated nuclear weapons during the cold war are now, in peacetime, mostly devoid of activity and hundreds of sheds and warehouses that once housed personnel and research facilities are now eerily empty.

So it may be surprising that this test range, as big as Rhode Island, polluted in places with radiation and shielded behind a veil of secrecy, is described in a brochure as "open for business."

And it may also be surprising that employees of the Federal Department of Energy, which controls the test site and the nation's nuclear program, now use phrases such as "commercial development and "private investment" alongside traditional test site jargon like "kiloton yield."

In an effort to generate money and promote economic development here in southern Nevada following a moratorium on nuclear testing in 1992, the Government has begun to transform parts of this base -- where the staff has been cut from 10,000 to 2,500 -- into a business park of sorts.

Companies are invited to open facilities at the test site -- whose main entrance is near this small town 65 miles north of Las Vegas -- with the unusual lures of restricted access and absence of neighbors who, for example, might complain about the use of toxic chemicals.

The three-year-old program is similar to the Defense Department's effort to help communities hurt by military downsizing. But there are some important differences: The test site is under no threat of closing, has no plans to sell off land and is mandated to stay ready for nuclear tests in case international tensions rise.

"This is a site with characteristics that don't exist anywhere else," said Tim Carlson, president of the Nevada Test Site Development Corporation, the nonprofit organization financed by the Energy Department to market the test site.

"In there, you find a niche. Take the aerospace industry, for example.

Where else can you find restricted airspace in the United States? Where else can you launch a reusable rocket?"

The only tenant so far is Fluid Tech, a company that cleans equipment contaminated with low-level radiation.

To its relief, it has found a warm welcome inside a massive abandoned hangar with steel blast doors, cleaning bays and an overhead crane. There, in the 60's, scientists tried to develop a nuclear-powered rocket.

LUID TECH had built a facility in the nearby town of Amargosa Valley, but was blocked from opening by local opposition. Dean Rowsell, president of Fluid Tech, said that his company had avoided hassles by situating its operation in a desolate valley 15 miles inside the test site, even though the five-year lease cost "as much or more as in Las Vegas."

"But we're willing to pay it because we have a pretty good idea of the problems we'll go through there," he said, referring to environmental and political problems he would experience in Las Vegas.

Fluid Tech's staff of about 40 workers and those Government employees not housed on the base live in such surrounding communities as Las Vegas, Amargosa Valley, Tonopah and Pahrump, all within two hours' drive of the test-site entrance.

One company that expects to move to the test site within the next two years is Kistler Aerospace, which is planning to launch satellites from the base on the world's first fully reusable rocket.

Launches require restricted airspace and dozens of square miles of flat open land for the rockets to return -- if all goes well -- using a parachute and airbags.

The company anticipates building a launch pad and several buildings for flight control and assembly, representing a $45 million investment. Robert Wang, chairman of Kistler Aerospace, said that his company was attracted by the availability of utilities (unlike remote sites elsewhere) and equipment and the potential of hiring part-time skilled personnel.

Other businesses expressing interest in signing on for one of the various vacant buildings or at an industrial park planned around the base airport include a company that recycles carbon, a liquid-oxygen manufacturer and a company that is developing hydrogen enriched natural gas for cars. One firm that is considering building a solar power plant on the test site is now negotiating with potential customers.

Businesses that move into the test site must still get state licensing and follow environmental laws, which are generally less restrictive in isolated locations. They must also get approval from a board, which weighs such factors as the impact of the business on national security, safety, interference with a neighboring Air Force base and the creation of high technology jobs that could go to laid-off test site workers.

That eliminates tennis-shoe manufacturers, for example, according to Richard D. Betteridge, an Energy Department official who is working to bring new activities to the test site. Even in the unlikely event that such a business would want to be so far from a city where workers could live, its presence at the test site would not benefit the Government's mission to create skilled jobs and diversify southern Nevada's growing, but still casino-dependent, economy, he said.

Mr. Betteridge added that one man who wanted to open a juvenile drug rehabilitation program was "obviously turned down in one telephone call." Other companies, he said, lose interest once they learn that the test site is not immune from regulation.

OME people come out here and think 'I can do anything, I can pollute all I want,' " Mr. Betteridge said. "Once they find out that's not the case, they don't call back."

Among the marketing offerings are some for only temporary use, such as an existing hazardous chemical spill center, which companies like DuPont could lease for a few weeks to conduct safety drills. And officials at the test site are also trying to attract more government work, perhaps an antiterrorism center where engineers would blow up mock buildings to learn how to build with more durable materials. Universities are welcome to use the test site for research, an Energy Department said.

But much of the test site will probably never be considered for commerce. Parts of the base are reserved for secret military projects, future nuclear detonations and an underground nuclear-waste depository called Yucca Mountain, which is scheduled to open in the next century. In addition, there are occasional nuclear experiments not involving a chain reaction, crater fields, and a small portion of land contaminated by radiation.

Commercial development is a profound transformation for the test site, which has been the nation's primary venue for nuclear weapons testing since 1951. Over the years, 928 nuclear devices have been detonated, at first in the atmosphere, then deep underground after the harmful effects of radiation became better known.

The work stoked the economy in the neighboring rural counties and gave life to Mercury, the restricted Government town on the test site at which hundreds of scientists once spent the night in dormitories. After the Cold War ended and much of the staff left, the town's movie theater and bowling alley were closed.

If nuclear tests resume, the Energy Department says new companies at the test site will not be thrown out nor be contaminated by fallout.

But some may be kept from their facilities as a precaution for, at most, a few days when tests are scheduled.

It is too soon to say whether there will be much of a demand in the business world to locate at the test site. However, Mr. Carlson explained that his goals in marketing the base were fairly modest.

"We're not going to make a major profit on this," he said, "but we want enough money to be able to continue the service and drop the cost of operating the test site."