Dispersing radiation for Nuwax-81 exercise

This is clipped from the 1982 Defense Department film, NUWAX-81 Documentary Nuclear Weapon Accident Exercise. This clip shows the spraying of short-lived radioisotopes via an agricultural sprayer to a localized area to simulate contamination by weapons-grade plutonium.
The Nuclear Weapons Accident Exercise (NUWAX-81) was conducted in April 1981 jointly by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) at the DOE's Nevada test site and included FEMA and the State of California. The six day exercise scenario involved a simulated crash of an U.S. Army helicopter transporting nuclear weapons to a storage site. Aircraft parts and pieces of inert nuclear training weapons were prepositioned at the site. Short-lived radioisotopes, radium-223 and mercury-197, were distributed via an agricultural sprayer to a localized area to simulate contamination by weapons-grade plutonium. More than 600 accident response personnel participated in the exercise. The major objectives were to exercise and evaluate the Federal Emergency Management Agency's interface with DOD, the command and control of the joint DOD-DOE response forces, and the coordination of their technical and logistical support. The exercise aroused greater awareness within federal and state governments of the need to plan and coordinate response procedures and to practice these procedures and was followed up by additional exercises. The entire film, NUWAX-81 Documentary Nuclear Weapon Accident Exercise, has been digitized by the nonprofit Public.Resource.Org (http://public.resource.org/index.html ) in a cooperative agreement with the National Technical Information Service (http://public.resource.org/ntis.gov/index.html ) and is available at the Internet Archive at www.archive.com .

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