Stop Divine Strake

StopDivineStrake.com

Home Other Contamination Dust Cloud Background Radiation The NNSA Safety experiments Fallout everywhere United Nations Prevailing Winds Divine Strake in Context

Home Trinity test ANFO Tests Plowshare tests DU Experiments LANL Fallout from U.S. Nuclear Testing

Life in a nuclear world article Poetry project Subcritical test Unicorn Nuclear World flash movie Shot Baneberry Divine Strake Timeline Divine Strake links Contact

Divine Strake was cancelled on Feb. 22, 2007.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a Pentagon agency that is responsible for the Divine Strake test, said on August 1 that it was considering alternate locations for the 700-ton ammonium-nitrate fuel-oil bomb test that was originally planned for detonation at the Nevada Test Site. Although DTRA is 'assessing several possible sites' for the explosion, the short list of locations includes Southern Indiana's Mitchell Quarry and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The Indiana site is perhaps the most desirable site for the blast because of its limestone characteristics. Divine Strake is part of a Department of Defense test series named the Tunnel Target Defeat/Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, which is intended to determine the lowest-possible nuclear yield explosion needed to destroy a buried limestone tunnel. It is not known if a tunnel already exists in the limestone test bed that was constructed by DTRA for the two previous conventional bomb tests that the agency conducted in Indiana in 2004 and 2005.

In 2007, the people in the eastern part of the U.S. won't be getting a tax break or universal health care. They'll be downwind of a dirty bomb funded by their own tax dollars.

The most recent conventional bomb tests in Indiana were Discrete Gemini 1 and 2, two 3,000-pound nitro-methane explosions that were carried out by DTRA in July 2004 and March 2005 at the Mitchell Quarry. Discrete Gemini 1 and 2 were part of the same Tunnel Target Defeat Program test series that includes Divine Strake. The Discrete Gemini tests were intermediate scale tests - whereas Divine Strake would be a 'full scale' test - designed to 'measure ground shock and tunnel damage.' DTRA conducted these tests without notifying the public or the emergency management director of Lawrence County, although the agency claims it was in compliance with all applicable environmental regulations. Apparently, the only Hoosiers who knew about the tests were the employees of the Rogers Group, Inc., a construction products company that owns the land where the Discrete Gemini tests were detonated and where Divine Strake may be moved. It turns out that the Rogers Group has a history of conducting unusually large explosive tests without giving warning to local residents and members of the local government.

The Rogers Group is a privately-held, family-owned construction products company founded in 1908. The Rogers Group owns quarries in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee and provides aggregates (crushed stone, sand, gravel, and asphalt), highway construction services, and concrete masonry services to the south-central United States. The company, headquartered in Nashville, TN, had estimated 2004 annual revenues of $350 million. The Mitchell Quarry is located on company land in the town of Mitchell, Indiana.

The Divine Strake test poses a public health risk if it is moved to Indiana. The chemical compounds created by the Divine Strake blast could adversely affect health if those chemicals enter into the water supply in the area of the blast or is inhaled by downwinders.

In 2007, the people in the eastern part of the U.S. won't be getting a tax break or universal health care. They'll be downwind of a dirty bomb funded by their own tax dollars.

The hydrocarbon byproducts of the test, which includes phosgene, a chemical weapon, will be spewed into a 10,000 foot high dust cloud:

According to the REA [Revised Environmental Assessment], the test will produce two tons of cyanide compounds, 25 tons of particulates, a ton of hexachloroethane, a ton each of tetrachloroethylene and tetrachloromethane, a ton and a half of phosgene, nearly a ton of sulfur dioxide, more than 31 tons of carbon monoxide, seven tons of nitrogen oxides, nearly two tons of chloroform, and many other noxious compounds. Who wants to be downwind of that?

... it takes about 30 years for hexachloroethane, a chemical used to make smoke in military and pyrotechnic applications, to migrate out of the lower atmosphere into the stratosphere.

....Phosgene was used as a chemical weapon in World War I. Sulfur dioxide is the cause of acid rain.'

From The 21st Century motto ought to be "Not on my planet" printed in The Spectrum :

Get involved! Click on action steps (on top) for more

Take the challenge: A credit - to be noted here on this page - will go to anyone who can successfully determine the location of the test-bed of Discrete Gemini I and II on this map of the Mitchell Quarry.

NOT SO DISCREET: The military named the two prior Mitchell tests Discrete Gemini 1 and 2. However, they probably meant to use the moniker 'DISCREET,' not 'Discrete,' since they successfully blew up the bombs in Mitchell without anyone knowing! Can you imagine what they have in store for Hoosiers, or Nevadans, with a test named 'DIVINE' ?

EARTHQUAKE!!

The 700-ton blast from Divine Strake will create a shock wave equivalent to a 3.1 to 3.4-magnitude earthquake. Although a III magnitude quake is 'weak' by USGS standards, the shock would be felt across a 100 square-mile area, equal to about the size of the greater Indianapolis metropolitan area. If the blast only slightly exceeds its predicted shock value, the effects could be felt over a larger area.

Worse, a major fault line, the New Madrid Seismic Zone, one of the country's most active seismic areas, lies directly southwest of the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone, which runs through Southwestern Indiana. The most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the lower 48 states occurred along this fault line when, in 1811-1812, four 8.0+ Richter earthquakes shook much of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains. The ground shaking actually rang church bells as far away as Boston and reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.

There is near consensus among seismologists that a major earthquake can occur anytime along these ancient fault lines that crisscross the Midwest, although there is disagreement over when it will occur and how big it will be.

Could Divine Strake trigger the Big One? Earlier this year, Australian seismologists concluded that a 2.2 Richter earthquake in Beaconsfield, in Tasmania, was triggered by explosive tests used in a local mining operation. A Melbourne seismologist said that the explosive blasts in the mines would normally 'go up to the equivalent of Richter magnitude 3, maybe 3.5.'

Divine Strake is expected to produce a similar magnitude shock wave, however it will happen near a major fault line that is ready to go at any moment.

Better check your homeowners insurance policy for coverage on human-triggered-earthquake disasters. Or does this 'Divine' test fall under the category 'Acts of God'?

Source: Mine work `almost certainly' caused the quake, 27 April 2006, The Australian

Member Labor Donated