From the Western Shoshone:
Excellent
news!! The 700 ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil test being planned illegally by the United States on Western Shoshone lands in
Nevada has been cancelled, not postponed
and not delayed, but cancelled! – effective today, February 22, 2007. AP story and Federal Press Release follows.
In response, Western
Shoshone Defense Project Community Organizer Larson Bill stated: “Hopefully this will be a true beginning
to an end of this type of testing and nuclear buildups – for the Western Shoshone and all humanity. We
want to thank everyone who helped us in this struggle to defeat Divine Strake. The fight still continues
for us on other environmental threats to our land and life – we look forward to everyone’s continued support.”
Original WSDP press release attached.
Western Shoshone Defense Project
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
775-468-0230
775-468-0237 (fax)
www.wsdp.org
wsdp@igc.org
Feds cancel Divine Strake
explosion
WASHINGTON - The government
said Thursday it is canceling Divine Strake, a controversial non-nuclear explosion in the Nevada
desert.
"I have become convinced that it's time to look at alternative methods that obviate the need for
this type of large-scale test," Defense Threat Reduction Agency Director James Tegnelia said in a statement.
Divine Strake was planned as a 700-ton test of the nation's ability to defeat underground facilities
that produce and store weapons of mass destruction.
But it prompted a lawsuit and widespread opposition in Utah and Nevada,
where critics feared it would kick up radioactive material from decades-old experiments.
DTRA Release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb.
22, 2007
Cancellation of Proposed Divine Strake Experiment
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has decided
to cancel the proposed Divine Strake experiment. “I have become convinced that it’s time to
look at alternative methods that obviate the need for this type of large-scale test,” said DTRA Director Dr. James A.
Tegnelia. This decision was not based on any technical information that indicates the test
would produce harm to workers, the general public, or the environment.
Divine Strake was a scientific experiment designed to
significantly advance the nation’s ability to defeat underground facilities that produce and store weapons of mass destruction.
The experiment would have entailed detonating a large amount of a common blasting agent over an existing tunnel at
the Nevada Test Site. It was to be the largest in a series of experiments that relied on the specific geology
at that location.
DTRA will attempt to develop alternative scientific means
for obtaining the important data that this experiment would have provided. Such methods to assess capabilities
to defeat underground facilities do not currently exist. The agency will develop advanced analysis techniques
and conduct confirmatory experiments at a much smaller scale to assist in developing new capabilities to defeat underground
facilities.
There is a national consensus on the need to improve
conventional capabilities to defeat underground targets that pose a threat to the United States.
“DTRA remains committed to help develop non-nuclear means to defeat underground targets. I
am optimistic that we will succeed,” said Tegnelia.
-end-