By
Blake Smith
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Dept. of Energy report finds university not environmental hazard, however
A report released yesterday by the federal government links the UA to possible secret involvement in nuclear-related activities, most likely in a scientific research capacity.
The U.S. Department of Energy reviewed the University of Arizona along with 576 other organizations around the nation to determine if nuclear environmental cleanup was needed at those locations.
The report, which was compiled in 1995 but remained classified until yesterday, cleared the UA of being an environmental hazard.
That does not mean the university has not participated in nuclear research in the past, though, said Melvin Young, director of the UA Radiation Control Office.
"I can't say with absolute certainty that nothing was done in the '40s," Young said.
"Certainly, nothing like nuclear bombs or anything remotely close to that was being researched," he said. "It was probably more of the scientific aspects of metallurgy properties of uranium or thorium."
Young stressed that uranium and thorium have wider uses than just the creation of nuclear weapons.
Aubrey Godwin, director of the Arizona Radiation Regulatory Agency, agreed that any work that was done by the university in nuclear research was likely confined to earlier in the century.
"Do they have radioactive material or explosives? I don't think they have that anymore," Godwin said.
Records from the late 1940s and early 1950s are not very accurate, though, and the extent of the UA's possible involvement in nuclear research may not be known for some time, Godwin added.
"I don't know that they did anything to actually put any weapons together," he said.
In the late 1960s, officials from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission looked into the possibility of nuclear research being done at the UA and interviewed faculty members, Young said.
Investigators left without taking any action, he added.
Four other Arizona sites, none of which were affiliated with the university, were also named in the report as possible environmental hazard sites.
Two sites, in Tuba City and Monument Valley, were recommended for cleanup.
