LAS VEGAS — Authorities say samples have been obtained from a blast crater and fire-damaged storage drums at a closed radioactive waste dump that exploded and burned almost a month ago northwest of Las Vegas.
Officials didn’t explain what the samples tell them.
A statement from the Nye County sheriff said investigators returned last week to the site of the Oct. 18 fire.
The statement says testing confirmed the material that burned was buried decades ago.
Several 55-gallon drums that blasted away were returned to the crater, and the site was covered with a “heavy waterproof tarp” until it can be properly resealed in the future.
Nevada owns the property, which opened in 1962 near Beatty as the nation’s first federally licensed low-level radioactive waste dump. It closed in 1992.