"Part of the Nevada Test Site that hosted nuclear blasts in the past has been closed to avoid a costly cleanup of contaminated soils.

During the height of the Cold War, 100 above-ground nuclear weapons experiments were conducted in remote desert areas at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Test Site covers an area larger than the state of Rhode Island and the federal government conducted nuclear weapons experiments above and below ground from 1951 until 1992."

Mary Manning reports for the Las Vegas Sun August 5, 2009. [2]