CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Invoking national security, President Bush has renewed an exemption allowing the Air Force to keep mum about its top-secret operations at Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, in southern Nevada.

Bush signed a memorandum on Tuesday declaring it of "paramount interest" to exempt the base from disclosing classified information.

President Clinton first issued the exemption in 1995 in response to two lawsuits filed by injured workers in Nevada seeking information about the military's environmental practices at the site. It has been renewed yearly.

In renewing the order, Bush also cited the Nevada suits brought by injured workers and Helen Frost and Stella Kasza, widows of two men who worked at the military base.

In their 1994 lawsuits, Frost and Kasza alleged that their husbands were exposed to hazardous and toxic materials while working at Groom Lake, which sits along a dry lake bed in Lincoln County, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The area is in a no-fly zone and closed to the public.

Attorney Jonathan Turley, who represents the families, said the presidential directive keeps secret documents and testimony that he believes would link Area 51 to the men's deaths.

"It is baffling to see the government continue to cover up what went on at Area 51," said Turley, who is also a George
Washington University law professor. "It is clear that there were criminal crimes and that government officials continue to resist any disclosure that would confirm such criminal content."

The 1-page memo exempts the Air Force from following federal, state or local solid waste and hazardous waste laws if classified information would be disclosed.

The government has acknowledged the existence of the Groom Lake installation but has not disclosed what it does at the facility.

The secrecy has fueled speculation about UFOs, aliens and other strange occurrences around Area 51. Residents of the nearby town of Rachel say the UFO talk began years ago when a Nevada Test Site worker claimed he saw alien ships there.

Word got around and the stories haven't stopped. Even the state got in on the UFO lore, officially naming a 98-mile stretch of state Route 375, which runs through Rachel, the Extraterrestrial Highway in 1996 and erecting green highway signs with images of spaceships.

Source: Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Date: December 24, 2002
Subject: Toxic data at Area 51 ruled confidential

[Federal Register: December 24, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 247)]
[Notices] 
[Page 78425-78426]

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Presidential Determination on Classified Information Concerning 
the Air Force's Operating Location Near Groom Lake, NV

AGENCY: Department of the Air Force, DOD.

ACTION: Notice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the President has exempted the United States Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada from any Federal, State, interstate, or local provision respecting  control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that  would require the disclosure of classified information to any 
unauthorized persons.
 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. W. Kipling At Lee, Jr., Deputy  General Counsel (Military Affairs), Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington DC 20330; telephone (703) 695-5663.
 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 42 U.S.C. 6961 makes each department, agency and instrumentality of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government (1) having jurisdiction over any 
solid waste management facility or disposal site, or (2) engaged in any activity resulting, or which may result, in the disposal or management of solid waste or hazardous waste subject to all Federal, State, interstate, and local requirements, both substantive and procedural (including any requirement for permits or reporting or any provisions 
for injunctive relief and such sanctions as may be imposed by a court to enforce such relief), respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal and management in the same manner, and to the same extent, as any person is subject to such requirements, including the payment of reasonable service charges. 42 U.S.C. 6961 also states that the President may exempt any solid waste management facility of any department, agency, or instrumentality in the executive branch from compliance with such a requirement if he determines it to 
be in the paramount interest of the United States to do so and that any exemption shall be for a period not in excess of one year.
 

[[Page 78426]]
 

    On September 13, 2002, the President exempted the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada from any Federal, State, interstate, or local provisions respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information concerning that operating location 
to any unauthorized person. Therefore, the text of the Memorandum from the President to the Secretary of the Air Force is set forth below.
 

Pamela D. Fitzgerald, Air Force Federal Register Liaison Officer.
 

Presidential Determination No. 2002-30 September 13, 2002
Memorandum for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency 
[and] the Secretary of the Air Force
Subject: Classified Information Concerning the Air Force's Operating 
Location Near Groom Lake, Nevada
 

    I find that it is in the paramount interest of the United States to exempt the United States Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, the subject of litigation in Kasza v. Browner (D. Nev. CV-S-94-795-PMP) and Frost v. Perry (D. Nev. CV-S-94-714-PMP), from any applicable requirement for the disclosure to unauthorized persons of classified information concerning that operating location. Therefore, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 6961(a), I 
hereby exempt the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, from any Federal, State, interstate or local provision respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information concerning the operating location to any unauthorized person. This exemption shall be effective for the full one-year statutory period.  Nothing herein is intended to: (a) Imply that in the absence of 
such a Presidential exemption, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) or any other provision of law permits or requires disclosure of classified information to unauthorized persons; or (b) limit the applicability or enforcement of any requirement of law applicable to the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada, except those provisions, if any, that would require the disclosure of classified information. The Secretary of the Air Force is authorized and directed to publish this determination in the Federal Register.
 

George W. Bush

[FR Doc. 02-32334 Filed 12-23-02; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 5001-01-P

By Bob Egelko ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO - An attempt to pry loose information about alleged toxic waste burning at a secret Air Force site in the Nevada desert - said to be the "Area 51" of extraterrestrial lore - hit a stone wall of secrecy in a federal appeals court Thursday.

Lawyers for five current and former workers at the base, and the widows of two workers allegedly killed by toxic wastes, are not entitled to learn whether hazardous substances exist there or how they are handled, the results of a federal toxics inspection or even the name of the base, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.

The 3-0 ruling upheld the Air Force's claim that giving out that information could endanger national security and a 1995 order by President Clinton further restricting disclosure. Before arguments in the case last November, the judges reviewed confidential government statements, while Air Force security officers guarded their conference room.

Besides the classified statements, the court cited an unclassified filing by Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall, who said information about certain chemicals in the soil or water "can reveal military operational capabilities or the nature and scope of classified operations."

The court, in an opinion by Judge Pamela Rymer, said the disclosure of even "seemingly innocuous information" can be barred if it is part of a "mosaic" of classified information.

"The court cannot order the government to disentangle this information from other classified information," Rymer said. She said the court was persuaded not only that the information was properly withheld, but also that "any further proceeding in this matter would jeopardize national security."

Jonathan Turley, a Georgetown law professor who represented the workers, said the ruling "sets an extremely dangerous precedent" for anyone seeking information from the military.

"This case has nothing to do with national security," he said. "I obviously know what happened at Area 51. My (clients) worked at Area 51. ...This case has to do with criminal violations" of hazardous waste laws.

He said he would seek a rehearing from the entire court and, if unsuccessful, appeal to the Supreme Court. But Turley said the two lawsuits have also accomplished an important goal: forcing the government to acknowledge the site and conduct a toxics inspection, although results of the inspection were not made public.

Justice Department spokesman Joe Krovisky declined comment, saying government lawyers had not seen the ruling.

Area 51, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, is a base where military aircraft such as the U-2 and Stealth fighter were tested. Its secrecy and remoteness have been prime fodder for UFO buffs, who link the site to the supposed crash of an alien spacecraft at Roswell, N.M. - a scenario played out in the movie "Independence Day."

In the current case, the government identified the site in question as "the operating location near Groom Lake" and denied it was Area 51. The court left the denial unchallenged after reviewing classified material.

Turley scoffed at the denial, saying the name was verified in a government security manual as well as declarations from workers and security officials.

The lawsuits said employees at the base routinely put hazardous chemicals in open 55-gallon drums and burned them. The suits said the exposure killed two workers, Walter Kasza, 73, and Robert Frost, 57, whose widows Turley represents, and injured the other plaintiffs.

Turley said Frost, before his death, lost a workers' compensation claim for his injuries, and Kasza never filed one. The workers sought no damages but requested a court finding that the Air Force stored toxic wastes without a permit, and orders forbidding transportation and burning of toxics.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro denied the requests but ruled that the results of an Environmental Protection Agency inspection of the site, conducted in response to one suit, would have to be made public unless Clinton intervened. The president then barred disclosure under a law that lets him exempt any federal facility from requirements of a federal toxic cleanup law.

The government appealed Pro's ruling, saying the report should have been declared secret under national security without the president's intervention, which must be renewed annually. The court declined to decide the issue, saying it was no longer a live controversy because of Clinton's action.

Rymer's opinion denying disclosure and ordering dismissal of the case was joined by Judge Harlington Wood of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, temporarily assigned to the panel. In a separate opinion, Judge A. Wallace Tashima said secrecy was proper but should require a presidential order rather than a subordinate's declaration of national security.

The case is Kasza vs. Browner, 96-15535.