Cleanup and listing delay?

["Vernon J. Brechin" <vbrechin@igc.apc.org>]

>From the Thursday July 29,1999 New Jersey News Headlines

(Blurb)


Missile Site Cleanup Announced - (McGuire AIR FORCE BASE) --

Officials at McGuire Air Force Base say they have hired a South
Carolina firm to clean up radioactive plutonium that leaked during
a 1960 fire at a nuclear missile site. The Trentonian reports that
the cleanup was announced a day after federal authorities added
other McGuire dump areas to the Superfund list... but not the
missile site in Plumstead Township, which was abandoned in 1972.



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                     Accident Description


Table 5-1: U.S.Nuclear Weapons Accidents, 1950-1980

June 7, 1960 / BOMARC / McGuire AFB, New Jersey
   A BOMARC air defense missile in ready storage condition
(permitting launch in two minutes) was destroyed by explosion and
fire after a high-pressure helium tank exploded and ruptured the
missile's fuel tanks.  The warhead was also destroyed by the fire
although the high explosive did not detonate .  Nuclear safety
devices acted as designed.  Contamination was restricted to an
area immediately beneath the weapon and an adjacent elongated area
approximately 100 feet long, caused by drainoff of firefighting
water. (p. 228)

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The fission nuclear warhead would likely have been the W-40.
17.9" dia. 31.64" long; ~350 lbs.
(with arming and fuzing systems); 7-10 kt.

Alternately it could have been the temporary enhanced yield
(boosted?) XW-25; < 1,4" dia.; 219 lbs.
(stock: 1.5 kt Genie rocket warhead).

------------------------------------------------------------------
Source:
U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, Chuck Hansen, Orion
Books, New York, NY  10003, 1988.
==================================================================

Another description on this accident is contained on page 136 of
"The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age: The Hidden History, The
Human Cost" / John May, Pantheon Books, New York, NY, © 1989.

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                   Questions Worth Asking

The accident, involving putonium-239, took place in 1960.
The site was abandoned in 1972.

Why did it take 27 years after abandondment to get to a cleanup?
Will the officials that were in charge in 1960 play any role in
the cleanup effort?
                                                Vernon Brechin
                                                vbrechin@igc.org

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