Interview with Donald R. Owen, June 23, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Donald Owen June 23, 2004 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Robert Nickel © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Donald Owen June 23, 2004 Conducted by Robert Nickel Table of Contents Mr. Owen recalls his experience as a miner before being hired by Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company [ REECo] to work at the Nevada Test Site. 1 Mr. Owen describes the mining tasks involved in conducting an underground nuclear test. 3 Despite the dangers of radiation, most miners at the Nevada Test Site considered their work to be less dangerous than working in traditional commercial mines. 5 Mr. Owen remembers witnessing the venting of the Baneberry test. 7 Protestors were a common sight at the Nevada Test Site. 8 Mr. Owen helped to organize a monthly meeting of retired test site employees. 10 Mr. Owen describes living conditions and social activities at the Nevada Test Site. 12 Workers at the test site had to pass a rigorous background investigation in order to receive security clearances. 13 The Joint Verification Experiment [ JVE] brought Soviet scientists to the Nevada Test Site. Mr. Owen believes that the work done at the test site played a vital role in winning the Cold War. 17 After several years as a miner at the test site, Mr. Owen was promoted to a mining inspector position. He describes his responsibilities as a manager and inspector of underground mining operations. 20 The Nevada Test Site was not immune to labor disputes. The unionized miners occasionally clashed with REECo management over working conditions and wages. 27 The high rate of cancer, silicosis, and other diseases among former test site miners eventually prompted the federal government to develop a program to provide compensation to those who suffer from such illnesses [ Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation, EEOIC]. 29 Mr. Owen describes the camaraderie that still exists among former test site miners. The monthly meeting of REECo retirees is consistently well- attended, and it has even drawn interest from local politicians and media outlets. 34 In the early 1990s, Bechtel replaced REECo as the Nevada Test Site’s primary civilian contractor. Mr. Owen discusses this change and its implications for the future of the Nevada Test Site. 36 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Donald Owen June 23, 2004 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Robert Nickel [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Robert Nickel: OK, to start off, if you just want to talk a little bit about your background, where you’re from, and how you ended up working at the test site. Don Owen: Well, I was born in Trinidad, Colorado, 1931, March 17. I lived there until I entered the military in 1950 during the Korean War. I was discharged out of the military in 1962. I moved to Bishop, California. I was there for quite a while, and I was driving back and forth when I hired out at the test site. And finally I decided to move to Las Vegas and I went to work at the test site in 1964. And I mined from 1964 to 1974 for Reynolds Electric[ al and Engineering Company, REECo], underground mining. And then from there I hired out to Fenix and Scisson— they were a mining- engineering company out of Tulsa, Oklahoma— and I worked for them until, oh, let’s see, approximately February of 1990. And Fenix and Scisson was bought out by Raytheon Company. We had the same jobs. And I worked for Raytheon until 1992, until I retired. So that’s about all I give you of my background, other than I enjoyed working underground. It was just like sitting here. Are there any questions you need? Well, I’m just interested in how you started working for REECo, Reynolds Electric. Did you work for them straight out of the military? No. No. I [ had] done mining at Bishop, California for Union Carbide. And actually my first mining experience was in Trinidad, Colorado— underground coal mining— and that was with Colorado Fuel and Iron [ CF& I]. All of the coal went to Pueblo, Colorado to the big steel mill, which the steel mill was making steel for military and different projects. And then I decided I UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 wanted to see some different country, so I moved to Bishop. And I worked there for a while for actually a mining company, a Chinese mining company right out of Bishop, California. It was Wa Chang. It was all contract work, which we made real good money. When the tungsten market went down, why, they sold out and closed down because the tungsten went down to almost nothing as far as money- wise. And so I decided to go back to the test site. And I worked, like I said, underground there for many years, and then transferred into the underground mining inspector part of it, which all of our blueprints and designs were what they mined. It was all our designs, and all of our ground support was our designs. And like I say, I worked there until I retired in 1992. OK. How did you first get the job at the test site? Did they advertise or did they come and recruit you or—? You mean when I first went mining? Yes. Well, I went out of the labor union here— Local 272, labor union out of Las Vegas— and we were from there referred to the mining department at the test site. And from there on, why, when they needed inspectors and stuff like that— which I knew almost everybody, so I had a real good friend [ 00: 05: 00] of mine that was a geologist and he wanted to know if I would go to work for Fenix and Scisson, which I told him yes, I really would. And it was good money and it was a good opportunity, so therefore I stayed with them for a lot of years. When you worked at the test site, you started off underground, is that right? Oh, yes. Yes. Everything was underground. When I first went to mining for REECo, why, we were building cavities, just like big rooms. We had to go up with a pilot hole and then bell the pilot hole out for cavities. At that time we were doing two different ones at the same tunnel— and UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 that was U- 12- G tunnel— and worked all the way through that. And then I worked at almost all the deep holes— the drill holes they called them— which one of them was about six thousand foot deep. And I worked in the drill holes which we also went down and put cavities in for different tests. And one of them was, like I say, six thousand foot deep, and there’s only one way up and one way down so you’re pretty isolated underground. And it didn’t seem to bother the miners any. Some of those holes were hot. We’d work four hours on and the next crew would come down to work the other four hours. So it was good working conditions. Now, you sort of touched on this, but what was a typical day like, working as an underground miner out at the test site? Did you live on site or did you commute? Yes, I lived in Area 12 there for most of that time. We had regular trailers to live in. There were two men on each end of the trailer. And it was a real good place to live. We had a real nice cafeteria. We had a movie. And there were different games. We had horseshoe pits and we had pool tables. There was always something to do after work. And like I say, out there us miners and different people that worked for them, it was like one big family actually. Everybody got along fine. You did your job, they did theirs, and there were no questions asked. But our regular typical mining was drilling, blasting, ground hardening, rock bolts, wire mesh, shotcrete— which is all ground hardening. So it was actually safe. We had electric lights. I mean it’s just like working downtown. How much work would go into each test, from a mining standpoint? From the time it started? Yes. Sometimes as high as four years. Oh wow. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 Well, that included all the mining and all the— well, we had regular alcoves. Different— ground zero had to be excavated, and different places for tests— which there were a lot of companies that had the regular tests in there, a lot of your oil companies, a lot of your gasoline companies. Companies— well, LLL [ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory], EG& G [ Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier], companies from Albuquerque— different big companies all had tests in there. After the event was completed and the test was completed, then they had what they called a re- entry mining. That would be going back in, going back through the doors, and mining to get the instruments back so the DOE [ Department of Energy] and DNA [ Defense Nuclear Agency] wanted to see what actually took place during the tests. And it was interesting. Very little radiation. It was safe. Although we were suited up for radiation, but it was still— it was always safe. [ 00: 10: 00] Now the instruments that went down into the cavity, did you have to put those down there or—? Well, some of them belonged to our company, some belonged to DNA, some to DoD [ Department of Defense], and the rest of those companies would have different types of experiments. But all we would do— the mining part of it— they would mine to those and recover them for those different companies that had tests in there. OK. So what would you do on a typical test day? I mean I imagine most of the work was beforehand, and afterwards, like you said, but did you actually get to witness the tests or were you—? Well, I saw several from a long distance off, but normally they would evacuate the whole complete area clear back to Mercury. And sometimes it all depended on the weather conditions. Sometimes it was two or three days before it was favorable to do the test. In case of a radiation UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 leak or anything, they wouldn’t take a chance on it blowing into neighboring counties and things like that. They wanted to make sure it was completely safe. And which it was usually 100 percent safe. Now you said they suited you up with the radiation suits? Well, yes, when we went back in after a test, yes, we were suited up with different type suits for the radiation. And did they warn you about what to expect or did they have limits on how much you could be exposed to? Yes. We wore what they called dosimeters, like a little telescope. Looked like a little pin actually. But you could read that and it’d tell you how much radiation you picked up. But we were allowed so many RADS, they call it. And after that, why, if you did pick up over that, they would probably take you back out. So normally we very seldom ever went over our quota on the radiation. I mean that was due to good ventilation and the tests went well. How long after the shot did you go back in? Usually maybe a couple days. OK. One of the things, when you talk about mining, that immediately strikes me is that it— I mean mining in general but especially for weapons— is that it just seems like really dangerous work. And you’re saying that most of it was pretty safe, but compared to other types of mining that you did before, was this more dangerous or less dangerous? No, I would say it was safer, for the reason that some of the companies I worked for mining, their safety wasn’t that good. Out there [ at the test site] we had a real good safety program and it was followed. We had safety meetings out there once a week. If you were concerned about anything, you could bring it up during the safety meeting— which normally would be taken care UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 of. And also anytime you were working in a radiation area, we had what they called a RADSAFE [ radiological safety] out there. They were the monitors. They would monitor our areas that were suspected of any type of radiation. So it was safe. Now was that REECo that was in charge of RADSAFE, or was that DOE? Yes, REECo. Well, they were working under REECo, but they were actually just radiation monitors. Normally we had one or two on each shift, all the time usually, in every tunnel. What were some of the rules that they had in place for safety, apart from the limits and the suits that sort of thing? Well, it was safety glasses. If you were working off of the ground or anything, it was safety belts and stuff like that. So actually they had a real good safety department. And it was followed real good by the employees and the miners and everybody else that worked underground. And far as [ 00: 15: 00] the ground, it was kept up, and it was probably safer than our ceilings, with steel rock bolts, wire mesh, and then��� I don’t know if you’re familiar with shotcrete. We also used a steel fibercrete, which is just like a plaster. But that was two inches thick over your wire and rock bolts, so we had no rock bolts, in other words. OK. How long would you be underground at a time? Normally an eight- hour shift, unless we had to stay, oh, say, for something else just before an event or something. We had to check for leaks or anything like that through our enclosures, and if we had to do that, then we had to pressure- ground them and make sure there were no leaks before the test on our enclosures going out of the tunnel. And was that every day, like a five- day work week, or was it staggered somehow? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 Normally it was a five- day work week, until maybe two or three weeks before the event time. Then you were probably putting in a lot of overtime on the weekends to get everything ready and make sure we met the right date for our test. Now were you ever working on a test where there were leaks or there were accidents? Oh, I think they had one down in the flats there below Area 12 at one time which, oh God, that was way back in the early 1970s. Baneberry, I think, was the name of the test. And there was a leak, and everybody was evacuated. Nobody got any radiation. We were all evacuated back to Mercury, so everything went pretty good. But that’s the first time I saw the mushroom cloud. Oh really. I bet that was exciting. Yes, it was. We were standing there getting ready to get on the bus to go to the tunnel, and when they had the test we was all telling each other how pretty that was. We felt the test, the ground shake, and we said, Boy, that’s beautiful— you know, how it came up, mushroomed out. And we said, Oh, goddamn, that’s a leak. And then all the alert bells and everything, the sirens, went off, and then everybody was being evacuated. Wow. Now how close were you? Oh, we were, oh God, probably fifteen miles away. So we were at a safe distance where it was actually no danger. But it was something to see. I’ll bet. Now how long was it before you could go back for that one? I’ll bet— It was quite a while because most of that— the way the wind was blowing— went right straight for Area 12. So that’s why we went out the back way over Rainier Mesa and back through CP [ control point] and down to Mercury. But it was two or three weeks before they got everything cleared up in Area 12. And one thing that helped us a lot— it was right after the event— why, it snowed real good, so that got rid of a lot of radiation. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 Now after that test, I’ve heard that a lot of the safety concern was really heightened after that because they were worried about how they conducted the test— Yes. Well, from then on we had to be evacuated to Mercury. We were not allowed to stay in the forward areas for another one, on account of that. And it was just something went wrong, that’s all, you know. Once in a while we’d get those protesters. They would get as far as ground zero up on the mesa, Rainier Mesa. Yes, in fact I was at the service station gassing my vehicle, going back to Area 2, and the helicopter brought them in. They had them blindfolded and everything. And we scared the living hell out of them actually. We said, Are we going to hang them like we did the last bunch, or are we just going to take them over here and shoot them? [ 00: 20: 00] The security guards, they said, I don’t know. We haven’t really decided what we’re going to do with this bunch yet. Well naturally they sent them to jail in Beatty. But there was one woman and a couple of men. So they had to hike a hell of a long time to get way back up in there. I don’t think they ever wanted to come back. Did that sort of thing happen a lot, the protesters? Well, yes, they used to get penetration every now and then from them groups. We got a lot of them out, oh, days before the event. They’d be outside, below the gate there in Mercury. And it was some weird looking people. Did they used to give you guys a hard time coming in and out of the site? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes, they’d holler at us and call us names and play like they were taking pictures and things like that. A little harassment. Did you guys ever yell back at them or did you just ignore them? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 No, we’d just laugh at them, you know, we kept it cool. But like I say, there were some weirdos. I don’t know where they come from. They looked like hippies, most of them. Long- haired, dirty. What struck me is they had one, he was an old Indian, I guess from India or something, he’d sit out there and beat on a drum all day. That was something else. No, they didn’t give us too much trouble but they got their point across, I guess. What did most of the employees think of that? Just a bunch of weirdos sitting out there, or did it bother anybody? No, not really. No, we still had our job to do. We’d go in and do our job and come quitting time, we’d go back out. They’d stay there for days at a time. Really? Oh, yes, they’d camp right outside there. Yes, they were something else. Now did you or did most of the workers live on site, or did a lot of guys commute back and forth? No, most of them were— there the last few years, we were bused in and out. Buses would— they’d pick different people up, different locations here in town. I think the bus was an MK at that time, the bus company— I don’t know whether they’re even still in business. But it was a dollar each way, and that was pretty reasonable. But a lot of people were bused into Mercury. And we went about thirty miles above Mercury to the forward areas where the tunnels were, so it was quite a ride. Normally if we were bused in up to the forward areas— normally we were putting in, with the bus ride and the time, about twelve hours a day. Wow. That’s a long haul. Yes, it is. But we got along OK. That’s another thing that really stood out for me is that, you know, even after all these years, you still keep in touch with a lot of these people. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 Well, that’s the reason we started that NTS [ Nevada Test Site] retiree breakfast program. It started, well, maybe just a few, and we’re getting bigger all the time, you know, with getting contacts with a lot of the guys that didn’t know anything about it. And there’s two of us, the day before the breakfast, we do the calling. We call each member. I call half a list and Don Slagle calls the other half. And we tell them what we got going on. We told them at the last meeting that you people, students from UNLV [ University of Nevada, Las Vegas] would be there, and it would be interesting to meet them. And this next meeting I think is, what, on the fourteenth of next month, and our speaker will be, what’s her name, Vanya Scott from the museum [ Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada]. She’ll be there. So if any of you people want to come back, feel free to come. You’re always welcome. Sure. Oh, great, thanks. So it’s every month that you meet, then? Yes, every second Wednesday of the month. OK, and how many people are on the list? [ 00: 25: 00] Oh, God, I think this last meeting, oh, Jesus, we got over two hundred on our lists. So there’s quite a few of them, and we’re getting new ones all the time, you know. But we make it a point to call each member. A lot of them will maybe not make it the one meeting, and they’ll all show up the next. We’ve had that place so crowded, you couldn’t get in hardly. We had to set up special tables and everything. And they have been real good to us down there. They don’t charge us anything for the space and, well, you notice they furnish all the coffee we need. But we bring a lot of people in there to eat, too. Yes, that’s the Original Pancake House on— Yes, on Charleston and Decatur. OK, that’s right. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 Right behind the bank on Charleston and Decatur. And those are all REECo retirees or can anybody—? Yes. Well, yes. There’s operators, there’s ex- miners, there’s ex- electricians, a lot of ex- supervision. I mean we got a little bit of everybody. That’s interesting. Now when did you first start organizing that? It’s been about three years ago. And I got elected more or less as the spokesman. I enjoy it, you know. I know almost everybody that comes in. And you notice how noisy it got. There’s all the— probably doing a lot of work- at- the- test- site- chat, I don’t know— and when they start eating it gets a little quiet. Well, that’s interesting that it’s such a wide range of people, you know. You have the miners, the electricians, and everything. That’s right. Yes. Well, we had some of them ladies, the secretaries. We got that one lady and her husband comes in. I can’t think of their name right now [ Helen Draper], but she used to sign all the checks for REECo. Oh really. And then we got all kinds. We enjoy it. Everybody has a good time. They come in and just see each other and see who’s left. Every once in a while we lose one by death, but that’s going to happen. Now, how many people worked for REECo at the test site? Oh, God, at that time I would say they— jeez, I would say probably two or three thousand people out there, in different areas. See, there’s several different areas. You got Area 12, you got CP- 2, and then you got Mercury, then you had some people over in that Area 25. They were scattered UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 pretty much. I would say there had to be that many around there. I don’t know exactly what the count actually would be, but I would say that’d be close. Now, was REECo as a company, were they based in Las Vegas at the time? Yes. Right. So did some people work in town and then other people came out to the test site? Oh, yes, they had offices in town and also at the test site. And they were a big company. It was an engineering company, and they [ had] done all the hiring for the miners and all the crafts. But all the crafts that come to there, they’d be sent out by their own unions, and they had to have a referral slip. They’d have to report to Mercury, in the main office there, and then they’d be sent out on to different areas, wherever they needed the personnel. So it was a lot of people there. I’ll bet. Now, you were talking about, you know, you had a movie theater and pool tables and everything at Area 12. What would you guys do after work when you were at the site, just socially? Socially, we’d go and we’d have dinner at the mess hall, and we’d probably go over to the rec hall, they called it, recreation hall, might have a couple beers— they sold booze. So we would sit down and yak a while. We’d play poker, play pool. We had a barber. It was pretty well fixed up. And they’d get first- run movies, so we got to see a lot of good movies for pretty cheap. [ 00: 30: 00] I think it was twenty- five, thirty cents a movie. So it was reasonable. And the meals were good out there. They took real good care of us as far as meals. Did the REECo employees, did you guys, while working and socially, did you guys get to mix a lot with some of the other groups at the test site, like the DOE people or the—? Oh, yes. Well, being the mining inspector, why, we worked right under DOE and DNA, and they were the ones we actually had to account to. See, all of my reports, well, DNA got one, REECo UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 got one, DoD got one, so they all got a report of our activities. And that was every day, on each shift. It covered all the mining— how much footage we got on that shift, how many rock bolts was put in, how much wire was put in, and how much shotcrete was put in— and so it covered everything everyday. So they actually kept up with their records, you know, for several reasons. I imagine cost and things like that. So it was done pretty economically, you know. There was no big waste. Was there ever any tension between like the REECo management and REECo supervisors versus the DoD people and the DNA people and the DOE people? No, not that I ever— very seldom you would hear an argument. Some of them at REECo supervision, they didn’t like the way we wanted it done, but that was soon changed after one called the DoD. So that was the end of the argument. But normally everybody got along good. Like I say, we all— they had their own jobs, you know, everybody did their own jobs, and there were no questions asked. That’s the way it was supposed to be done. Now, as a REECo employee but working at the test site, what kind of security clearance did you need? I had top clearance— which they called classified— so I could actually go almost anywhere on the test site, including CP- 3. That was Area 3. That’s where they monitored all the events, and I got to see a lot of that. And they had films of the actual events and we got to see a lot of those. Yes, it was on the badge, “ classified clearance.” And also on your badge, you had a dosimeter for radiation. It was built in under the badge there. Once a month, that was changed and they’d see if you had picked up any kind of radiation. And they knew what areas you had been in, so they knew what to look for. No, it worked out pretty good. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 And what did you have to do to get that clearance? I mean I imagine there’s some kind of investigation. Well, you had to have a background check. Now, on mine, on my classified, when I went through it again, I got a copy of it. They went back— I was still in grade school— so they knew more about me than I knew about myself. So almost everybody out there had to go through a top clearance, and that was through the federal FBI. So they got a record of me and everybody else that was out there. Yes. Well, that’s interesting. Did you ever hear of anybody getting denied a clearance for any reason? Oh, yes. Yes. If you had been arrested in this certain length of time or anything like that, yes, there were a lot of them that were denied a clearance. But I— also in the military I had a top clearance too, so I didn’t— and yet they still went back, way back, on me, even with the military clearance. Did a lot of the test site workers have military backgrounds? I imagine that’s a— that whole generation— Oh, yes, a lot of them had been in them military. Yes. Yes, most of those guys that shows up down there, at one time or another had been some type of military. The biggest majority of them. [ 00: 35: 00] Now, being, I don’t want to say a civilian contractor but a non- government worker working for REECo instead of the government, were there any special rules that you had to follow since you weren’t, you know, a government employee, as far as your clearance or what you were allowed to see? Yes. It all depended what kind of clearance you had, where you could go, what you could see, and what you could talk about. Actually out there everybody didn’t talk much about anything, UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 because you didn’t know who you were talking to. It could be a couple of those FBI men, or it could be an infiltrator, you know— and they were pretty slick too. But as far as I know, we never did have any of that kind of problem. Because like I said, when you come to the gate there in Mercury there, your badge was checked and your name, and they knew what kind of clearance you had and everything, so you were in pretty good shape. So we were in good shape. But we just didn’t— even coming home to our— see, my wife died about seven years ago, but we didn’t even talk about the test site at home to our wives. That must’ve been tough, you know, you can’t— Well, not really. My wife was an insurance adjustor and I never even talked to her about her job. I’m not that interested in it. And like she said, I’m not interested in what you’re doing. So I said, Well, let’s keep it that way. Do you think that that maybe is one of the reasons why all the miners in REECo were such a tight- knit group�� just because you could talk to them about work things, but you couldn’t talk to your families or your friends? No, or outside the test site, you didn’t mention things. No, it was a pretty tight group. Just like I said, like I’ve heard them say down there, we were one big family, and we helped win the Cold War. And just like Senator [ Harry] Reid said, Well, you guys did a beautiful job and you did help us win the Cold War, with our tests and different things that came out of that. Well, a lot of it was being tested. It wasn’t all war. A lot of it was peaceful things— which I can’t say what it was or this and that— but a lot of it was peace. Is that the Plowshare tests and the excavating and that sort of thing? Yes, things like that, you know. Did you ever get to see that big Sedan crater? Yes, we did. That was pretty incredible. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 That was quite— that sand went up, I don’t know how high. Did you work on that test? No. But that’s what they was testing for, for canals and stuff like that, which made sense. Instead of digging for months and months and months, why, they could do it with one blast. Yes, we went down sometime quite a while after that to do the bottom of— and drill the holes, tests in the ground, which it was nothing but sand. Did you actually get to see that shot when it went off? No. I wasn’t there at the time. But they said it— you talk about one big dust cloud, and it was for hours I’ll bet. One of the things that I’m interested in is, you know, you talked about you did mining in California and Colorado, coal mining, you said it was? Well, coal mining in Colorado, and a lot of hard rock. Water diversion tunnels. I’ve worked in a lot of, like I said, in California there where it was tungsten mining, gold, silver. Arizona. Yes, almost all kinds of m