Nevada County Foots Bill for Nuclear Test Protests

They stewed angrily for months. Finally, last week, the solution dawned on Jean and Bill Shockley.

Bundled in overcoats against the desert chill of a windy Nevada morning, they drove State Route 160 north from their Pahrump home to the gates of the Nevada Test Site here and waited.

When an estimated 2,000 activists protesting the first 1987 nuclear test detonation began gathering at the cattle guard that marks the facility’s entrance, Jean and Bill were ready.

Hand-Drawn Signs

Standing staunchly, as if all of America was there in support, the Shockleys arched their arms skyward and let their hand-drawn signs do the talking.

“Proud Nevada citizens sick of anti-nuke demonstrations,” one said.

Though insignificant against the teeming crowd of anti-nuclear protesters on Thursday, the Shockleys had fired a salvo in what some here in rural southern Nevada have come to consider a war.

Residents of Nye County accept with public aplomb the federal government’s 36-year-old practice of firing underground nuclear explosions here. What they cannot accept are the ever-increasing demonstrations at the Nevada Test Site. Their cantankerousness hinges less on philosophical disagreement than on a simpler sticking point: money.

Costs Hurt County

Nye County, to hear officials here tell it, is hurting. Costs stemming from the arrests, trials and jailing of nuclear protesters has set the county government askew.

In Beatty and Pahrump, court clerks and secretaries have been hired specifically to keep up with protester-spawned bookkeeping. Overtime for the county’s sheriff’s 55 deputies has skyrocketed. With the jails jammed, county officials have rented condominiums and motel rooms to house demonstrators intent on serving time to illustrate the depth of their convictions.

Last year alone, officials estimated, Nye County spent more than $200,000 in protest-related expenses, a goodly chunk of the county’s $2.5-million public safety budget. That amounts to roughly $14 a head for each man, woman and child in Nye County, which is home to less than 15,000 people, fewer than the number who fit comfortably in the Los Angeles Sports Arena during a basketball game.

“Two hundred thousand (dollars) wouldn’t be anything in Los Angeles; it’s a great deal to us,” said Bob Revert, one of three county commissioners--a position akin to a Los Angeles County supervisor. Revert said that the county has thus far been able to handle the protests’ costs by shifting priorities. A tax hike has been discussed, but not seriously, he said.

County’s Champion

Championing the cause of Nye County is newly elected Dist. Atty. Phil Dunleavy, 41, a stocky, gray-haired man who favors cowboy boots and tough talk and wants the protesters to go somewhere else, preferably soon.

“Nye County is not perpetrating this,” he said the other day. “The President doesn’t call Nye County to ask permission (to detonate a bomb). I doubt he knows where it is.”

The protesters contend that if Nye County is suffering a financial strain, it should take the matter to the federal government, which runs the test site. They are especially irked at the aggressive Dunleavy, who in recent weeks has stolen some thunder from publicity-conscious demonstrators with some slick, if controversial, public moves of his own.

“He sees himself as the little general of this mercenary army and is taking it upon himself to remedy what he sees as a problem,” said Las Vegas attorney Al Marquis, who represents one of Dunleavy’s sparring partners, actor and anti-nuclear activist Martin Sheen.

Frigid in winter and torrid in summer, Nye County sprawls across nearly 12 million acres of relentless Nevada desert. Between its northern and southern boundaries stretches a gap of nearly 400 miles; it is the third-largest county in the nation and also one of the least populated.

Closest to the test site is the town of Beatty, a proud if desolate community at the intersection of Interstate 95 and State Route 374 that bills itself as the “Gateway to Death Valley.” “No smog--brilliant stars,” boasts its Chamber of Commerce primer.

Most of its 1,000 residents live in trailers or modest single-story homes. There is one central gathering spot--the 80-year-old Exchange Club--and a couple of convenience stores, but comprehensive shopping still necessitates a 240-mile round trip to the dazzle of Las Vegas.

Until the early 1980s, no one in Beatty or the rest of Nye County had to contend with anti-nuclear protesters. There weren’t many.

From the test site’s opening in 1951 until 1982, there were a mere handful of arrests; charges were routinely dismissed. But by 1984, arrests had grown into the hundreds as activists seized on the site as a visual symbol of the practice of nuclear testing.

Growing Numbers

Records at the tiny, cinder-block Beatty Justice Court show that by the following year, 323 nuclear protesters were processed through the court for booking, arraignment and trial. Most arrived in groups after organized demonstrations. It was then that Bill Sullivan, a former service station owner who became Beatty’s justice of the peace nine years ago, knew he had a problem.

“We started out every time trying to get them into court for arraignment the same day (as their arrest),” Sullivan said. “We were here at 3, 4 a.m.”

Things have only gotten worse. Last year, court records show, more than 600 people were processed through the Beatty court. In the last three weeks, more than 500 have come through.

On big days--like Thursday’s mass demonstration that led to more than 430 arrests--Sullivan holds court in the community center, the only place in town large enough to come close to holding all those arrested. On Thursday, there were so many protesters that some had to wait outside for booking.

One of Sullivan’s three clerks does nothing but protest-related bookkeeping--and the others help her. Trials used to be held in Beatty only on Thursdays. Now they are held nearly every weekday.

“We are being inundated with this,” Sullivan said.

Four-Cell Jail

Normally, those convicted of a misdemeanor charge such as trespassing would serve their time in the four-cell Beatty Jail, located in the same small building as the court. But with the sheer numbers of protesters, jail officials have to drive prisoners to other facilities hundreds of miles away--and must pay back other counties for the costs of imprisonment. Several times, prisoners have been held in condominiums and motel rooms in Tonopah, the county seat north of Beatty, when that town’s 30-bed jail overflowed, Deuel said.

The strain is heightened by the protesters’ policy of refusing fines and community service work and accepting only jail time. According to a “jail solidarity” memo passed out to protesters last week, fines are seen as discriminating against the poor and also serve to put money back “into the system we are working against.”

The cost to the Beatty Justice Court alone is expected to pass $20,000 this year; a like amount will be needed to pay for the protest-related duties of the deputy district attorney for southern Nye County, George Deuel.

Deuel, in office since December, said he spends at least a quarter of his working hours on protest-related efforts. On Thursday, his son’s 10th birthday, Deuel was at Beatty Court until 10 p.m.--and then had to drive home to Pahrump, 100 miles away.

“I wasn’t pleased,” he said dryly. “Unfortunately, a lot of times our real function, enforcing the law, goes by the wayside. You can only stretch yourself so thin.”

Contract With DOE

Nye County is bound to enforce the law on the 1,350-square-mile nuclear preserve because of a contract with the Department of Energy. The DOE, which operates the site, pays the salaries of five deputies stationed there and provides them with patrol cars. In exchange, the deputies enforce traffic laws on the hundreds of miles of paved roads within the test site--and deal with the protesters.

DOE spokesman Chris West said the contract sets a ceiling of $250,000 on the Energy Department’s cost.

Both County Commissioner Revert and Deputy Dist. Atty. Deuel estimated that the county’s cost above that ceiling is more than $200,000 annually. County officials have begun a formal study to determine the exact cost, and on Friday met with DOE officials for the first time to discuss ways of easing Nye County’s load. Nothing was decided.

Both the commissioner and the district attorney plan to press the federal government for assistance in handling the arrests. Meanwhile, Dist. Atty. Dunleavy has launched an aggressive campaign against the protesters themselves.

Shortly after taking office, he dismissed charges against more than 130 protesters who were scheduled to go on trial Jan. 21, thereby quashing hopes by activists that the trial would be a nationally publicized forum on nuclear testing.

‘Never Got Off the Ground’

“They had this big show choreographed and it never got off the ground,” he said. “If they want to air their political views, get a soapbox or get elected.”

Then, two weeks ago, Dunleavy again outraged anti-nuclear groups when he arrested actor Martin Sheen for stating on national television that he hoped to commit civil disobedience at the test site. Acting under a little-known Nevada statute that makes it illegal to threaten a crime, Justice of the Peace Sullivan ordered the actor to post a $5,000 peace bond. Sheen, who was arrested Thursday for trespassing at the test site, stands to lose the bond if he is convicted.

Dunleavy’s action drew swift opposition from attorneys representing anti-nuclear activists.

“People in this country have a constitutional right to express their views,” said Sheen’s attorney Marquis. “It is a violation of the First Amendment to go after the organizers or people who announce they intend to commit civil disobedience.”

Many protesters see Nye’s financial dilemma as a figment of Dunleavy’s imagination, concocted to drive away peaceful protest. Others suggest, with varying degrees of compassion for Nye County’s residents, that someone has to foot the bill.

‘Price Has to Be Paid’

“For everything that’s done, there’s a price that has to be paid,” said Greg Martin, a 29-year-old photographer from Santa Cruz who attended Thursday’s demonstration. “We do what we believe is right. That price has to be paid. What can we say--we’ll do nothing?”

Protesters likewise hope that if Nye feels a big enough pinch, it will pull out of its enforcement role, forcing federal authorities to intervene. The result--trials in federal court--would be a publicity boon, protesters said.

“We want to get this out of the county level,” said Peter Greenberg, a spokesman for American Peace Test, a Las Vegas-based protest group. “We don’t want to be an imposition to them.”

With that, Beatty and the rest of Nye County might agree.

“I think people can see why they (the protesters) feel the way they do; they don’t understand why their taxes are spent to support it,” Revert said.

“I wonder if they’re not protesting at the wrong place,” said Ralph Obermiller, a physician’s assistant who runs Beatty’s small medical clinic. “Washington is where the decision-making is. That’s where the protesting should go.”