ST. GEORGE - Southern Utah residents welcomed the opportunity Thursday to speak their piece about the proposed Divine Strake explosion test.
    Person after person stepped to the microphone during the first of Gov. Jon M. Huntsman's two Divine Strake public hearings. Many of the same people derided information sessions held last week by the federal agencies behind the explosion test.
    Unlike the federal hearings, the governor's was not subject-limited to technical issues. The hearing was more like a political rally, where outrage, grief and frustration spilled out from about five dozen people who blame atomic testing in the 1950s at the nearby Nevada Test Site for a grim litany of illnesses and deaths. The non-nuclear Divine Strake blast also will take place at the Nevada Test Site.
    "It always surprises me we have to fight this," said Claudia Peterson, whose family has been plagued with cancer that she believes is caused by the atomic testing. "I don't think we should have to fight so hard to have a happy, healthy life."
    But a fight is exactly what all but one speaker insisted state leaders should do.
    They doubt the federal government's assertion the test will not send a mushroom cloud of radiation-tainted litter into Utah, like the earlier atomic tests did. They also want Divine Strake stopped to ensure that the U.S. government does not begin testing and using nuclear weapons once again.
    Department of Environmental Quality Director Dianne Nielson, representing the Republican governor, listened for more than two hours in a packed Dixie State College auditorium.
    Physicist Raymond H. Cyr urged Nielson to "be all over the measures" if the tests do go forward, since radiation from the atomic tests could be seen as far away as New York.
    "Distrust and verify," he said.
    Richard Andrews complained about lies from the federal government over the impacts of past tests.
    "I don't know about anyone else," he said, "but I don't trust them."
    Applause roared from the audience of more than 200 after his remarks, as they did many times after speakers talked about the lingering impacts of past tests.
    Two agencies, the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, say that Divine Strake (the name, they insist, has no meaning) will help the government learn more about destroying underground bunkers being used by U.S. enemies.
    Their plan is to detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate, a non-nuclear explosive, to measure the likely impact of both conventional and nuclear explosions.
    To many people, including Michelle Thomas, the federal government's studies and assurances mean nothing.
    "They can send me booklets up the yin-yang and I won't believe them," she said.
    St. George resident Carl Palmer was the sole speaker in support of the tests as a necessary tool for securing national security - and he was booed for it.s
    He noted that he watched the atomic test explosions when he was a boy growing up in Cedar City, and hundreds of people like himself suffered no ill effects. He said the remarks made Thursday represented "a lynch-mob mentality."
    Palmer's comments, like those of his critics, will be included in the state's official statement to the federal agencies on their environmental assessment.
    fahys@sltrib.com
   
    About the
    public hearings
    Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr.'s Divine Strake public hearing in Salt Lake City will take place in the West Capitol Office Building, Room 135, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Nuclear Security Administration will continue to take comments on their environmental assessment of Divine Strake through Feb. 7. More information, is available at www.dtra.mil.
  
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