Utahns Speak Out at Divine Strake Hearing

By Tracy Medley, 1-25-07

So, how do you get citizens living in the most conservative state in the nation to talk about their extreme distrust of the United States government in public? Apparently all you have to do is threaten to detonate a 700-ton ammonium nitrate bomb in their back yard, which would kick up a 10,000 ft. mushroom cloud and potentially radioactive dust left behind from earlier nuclear testing.

Utahns have come out of the box –so to speak- with their absolute opposition to the government’s planned Divine Strake test in northern Nevada. Last month’s “public information” meeting debacle held by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Nuclear Security Administration left most Utahns cold; including the Sen. Orrin Hatch, Rep. Jim Matheson and Gov. John Huntsman Jr. Citizens who attended that meeting were left surprised and angry that they were not allowed to speak openly. After the federal government’s failure to allow public dialogue on the subject, Gov. Huntsman and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality organized another meeting, which took place on Wednesday night.

Between 250 and 275 people attended the hearing offering statements, some emotional, mostly expressing their opposition to the controversial test. Many who spoke expressed both outrage and distrust for the federal government’s assurance of the test’s safety; offering story after story of deaths and illnesses in their families caused by the earlier tests.

According to reports in both The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News, Gov. Huntsman himself pledged to take the concerns of Utah’s citizens directly to Washington. “This is the power of the people,” Huntsman said to the crowd. “I am going to bring their message to Washington and get something done.”