The Energy Department will follow a panel's advice for the forecasting of effects at a blast area in Nevada.

By Keith Rogers Review-Journal

The Energy Department will use a blue-ribbon panel's critique of computer models when evaluating how far contamination from underground nuclear tests might spread in 1,000 years at the Nevada Test Site.

"We're going to adopt their recommendations," said Carl Gertz, environmental manager of the department's North Las Vegas office, which oversees the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

His comments came during a presentation to the test site's Community Advisory Board at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Wednesday night.

Gertz was responding to criticism from six experts who reviewed the agency's plan to use computer models to forecast how far contamination will spread from 10 below-ground nuclear bombs exploded in Frenchman Flat. The flat is one of six areas that have cavities left from a combined 878 detonations. More than one bomb was exploded at some of the sites.

The peer review panel said the computer models will produce flawed results because none of the contamination plumes has been characterized, and because there was insufficient data from wells and ground water flows.

Panel members suggested constructing two multilevel monitoring wells north and south of where nuclear bombs were detonated, using seismic surveying techniques to determine geologic conditions beneath the surface, and sampling all existing wells for radioactivity to verify the Frenchman Flat model.

The model is supposed to predict with a 95 percent confidence level the boundary where ground water at the test site will not exceed a 4 millirem dose of radiactivity to the public for up to 1,000 years. A 4 millirem dose is the safe drinking water guideline. A millirem is one-thousandth of a rem, the dose unit for measuring the effect of radiation on the body.

The Frenchman Flat computer model, in conjunction with a regional ground water model, are supposed to be used to deal with the other five areas where massive contamination lurks beneath the test site's surface. A total of $176 million has been spent developing the models.

State environmental officials approved the Frenchman Flat plan with a checklist of questions that must be addressed. Paul Liebendorfer, chief of the state bureau who approved the Frenchman Flat strategy, said the Energy Department will probably have to refine its models and present them to the state many times before they can be satisfactorily accepted.

"I think we're a long way from getting there. They do need to get more data," he said.

One of the peer review panel members, Dennis Weber, a physicist at the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the Department of Energy failed in all categories and the Frenchman Flat strategy "is not reparable."

A new strategy should be drawn up because "no Band-aid is large enough to fix it," he said.

"Modeling can be part of science, but modeling is not science. Science is a method, which requires a process," Weber said.

Rick Nielsen, an environmentalist and Community Advisory Board member, agreed.

"It's obvious that not everybody is as confident as DOE and the state that the current strategy will work," he said Friday.