Test site renamed.

Please read the article and don't forget the anonymous contributor's comments below it:

Las Vegas Review Journal

October 7, 2009

Test site will get name change
Revision to reflect its 'expanded mission'
Keith Rogers

Congress set out to modernize the mission of the Nevada Test Site and eventually
change the name it's had for the past 57 years with Senate passage Tuesday of
the defense authorization bill.
The 93-7 vote sent the measure to President Barack Obama with an amendment by
Nevada's senators that charges the head of the Department of Energy's National
Nuclear Security Administration with "renaming the site to reflect the expanded
mission."
That "expanded mission," according to the amendment by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
and John Ensign, R-Nev., will focus on developing methods to verify treaties and
reduce nuclear security threats "while continuing to support the nation's
nuclear weapons program and other national security programs."
The act provides $89 million for defense-related projects in Nevada but doesn't
specify what the new name should be for the place that was first called the
Nevada Proving Grounds in 1951 and changed about a year later to the Nevada Test
Site. Last month, managers of the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas,
said they envision it becoming home to a new National Center for Nuclear
Security where experts on treaty verification, counterterrorism and
nonproliferation will huddle to chart the nation's course for achieving national
goals.
Among the objectives is to support threat reduction programs "of the entire
national security community" including those under the NNSA, the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, "and other agencies as
appropriate," the amendment states. Last month, Stephen M. Younger, president
of the test site's prime contractor, National Security Technologies, touted a
nuclear security center as "the biggest thing at the site in many decades."
According to Younger and NNSA Nevada Site Office Manager Stephen Mellington the
test site's modernized mission will include more work with U.S. intelligence
agencies and authorities on international nuclear security. Tasks will range
from developing countermeasures for would-be nuclear terrorists to helping the
Pentagon's effort to detect roadside bombs, and some other classified projects.
The test site's broadened scope will augment its long-standing mission to check
and certify that the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is safe and reliable

My Comments:

Let's have a contest for the renaming of the test site:
NWDTAS - Nevada We Don't Test Anymore Site
NWUTS - Nevada We Use to Test Site
NSBFPS - Nevada Senators Bucking For Pork Site

So Senators Reid And Ensign need to rename the site to possibly justify 89
million bucks being spent in Nevada. They envision a "National Center for
Nuclear Security" were experts can huddle to talk shop. To be built 65 miles
from Las Vegas? Do you really need to go to the former NTS to have a secure
spot to have a yak fest?

I bet the two senators would not be so supportive of the site if we resumed
underground testing. The Las Vegas sprawl pushing closer to the site would
cause a hue and cry and you could be assured that Senator Reid would be the
first to call NIMBY, as proven by Yucca Mountain.

I'm waiting for E.O. Lawrence to climb out of the grave and ask for his name to
yanked off the Livermore Lab's name plate.