Construction Trades at NTS

Construction trade workers such as miners and laborers, operating engineers, electrical workers, carpenters, pipefitters, painters, and ironworkers mined tunnels, drilled vertical holes, prepared and maintained testing areas, and re-entered tunnels to retrieve equipment following nuclear blasts. Security guards and teamsters supported this work. At the peak of underground testing in the mid-1980's, as many as 15,000 workers were employed at the NTS, about one-third of them construction workers. Many of these workers were exposed to hazards such as silica dust, diesel exhaust, noise, radiation, and beryllium.