Greenpeace Activists Arrested at Nuclear Test Site

Six Greenpeace protesters were arrested Sunday after infiltrating a nuclear weapons test site in the Nevada desert, climbing atop a building and unfurling a banner reading, “Stop Nuclear Testing Now,” authorities said.

The arrested men and women were part of a team that hiked in darkness to the Pahute Mesa testing site, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to decry the country’s continued testing of nuclear weapons despite the end of the Cold War, said Greenpeace spokeswoman Claire Greensfelder.

The environmental group reached ground zero, or the detonation site, of a future test code-named “Greenwater.”

Greensfelder said the group believes that the bomb to be tested will be between 30 and 150 kilotons. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 exploded with a force of 13 kilotons, or the equivalent of 13,000 tons of TNT.

Chris West, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy in Las Vegas, declined comment on the size of the Greenwater weapon.

West said no property was damaged during Sunday’s protest. Because the test preparations are in their early stages, West added, there was no bomb or other sensitive material at the site.

The arrested protesters were charged with trespassing and are expected to be arraigned before a federal magistrate in Las Vegas within the next week, West said.