Environmental Restoration of Corrective Action Unit 408: Bomblet Target Area, Tonopah Test Range, Nevada (Funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act)

The mission of the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office (NNSA/NSO) Environmental Restoration Program is to address the environmental impacts of weapons testing conducted on the Nevada National Security Site and the Nevada Test and Training Range. The large physical size of these sites, along with limits on funding and other resources available for remediation efforts, means that environmental restoration activities must be prioritized and accomplished incrementally over time. The remediation of a bomblet target area on the Tonopah Test Range (TTR), which is located within the Nevada Test and Training Range, was originally planned in 2007 but was not carried out until funding became available in the summer of 2009 through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. This activity was implemented in accordance with the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order established between NNSA/NSO and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection. This activity which was complete by the end of Fiscal Year 2010, involved the excavation of disposal pits suspected of containing submunitions and the surface clearance of submunitions on seven target areas amounting to approximately 6.7 square kilometers of land at the TTR. The TTR was used by Sandia National Laboratories from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s to conduct research into the deployment of submunitions. Although there were efforts to identify, collect, and dispose various amounts of unexploded ordnance on the TTR in the past, no comprehensive effort to remediate the entire flightline area for submunitions was undertaken before this project.