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Lake Mead National Recreation Area
Floating on a large houseboat in the headwaters of Lake Mead was no one’s great idea for the second week in January. The outside temperature varied during the day between the high 40s and low 50s. True, in some parts of the country this is early spring weather. Add a 10-to-15 mph wind blowing across Lake Mead, and sitting inside the heated living room of the boat was John Moore’s idea of comfort.
This was the week of the annual Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. John’s apartment, located across the road from the Convention Center, would be overwhelmed by the traffic and the pedestrians going to and from the show. Far better to be anywhere than home struggling to exit the apartment complex parking lot to go grocery shopping and the other chauffeur duties that accompanied being a single dad with an eleven-year-old son.
Taking Chip out of school for the week wasn’t a tough call. Most small boys relish the opportunity to blow off school for a week. Most, that is, except Chip. Chip thrived in school but decidedly less so on weekends, holidays, and summer breaks. The kid loved science class and field trips. By contrast, sports and social interactions were less kind to him.
The weekend day trip to the Atomic Testing Museum over the Christmas holiday break was the biggest hit John scored in entertaining his son. One boy’s small t-shirt emblazoned with an atomic mushroom cloud later, and Chip was fascinated—obsessed really—with all things nuclear, especially if they exploded.
Chip was now convinced that all of Las Vegas was a blast zone with hidden pockets of radiation and the by-products of atomic detonations, if he only knew where to look. Loitering over his dad’s computer, Chip found a Geiger Counter Kit for less than $100. Normally, John wouldn’t agree to spend $100 for a toy Geiger Counter, but Chip’s enthusiasm to begin a radiation hunt was infectious. And he readily agreed to the houseboat adventure providing they could come ashore from time to time to search for signs of radiation.
John had to admit that he thoroughly enjoyed assembling the kit with Chip. There weren’t a lot of things that this father could do with his son.
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Northeast on Interstate 15 out of Las Vegas the highway ran through several valleys before crossing into Arizona, the Virgin River Gorge, and beyond to southwest Utah. If you drove long enough to pass the power plants on the west side of I-15 and the Moapa River Indian Reservation, you pass an interchange to nowhere. Exiting at Carp and Elgin, Nevada, you drive on unimproved roads best suited for four-wheel-drive vehicles and all-terrain vehicles heading both west and east.
Driving east through the Mojave Desert, you would soon leave behind views of the interstate highway for the vistas of ridges and canyons. At one time the canyons were popular camping sites, but sudden rain storms scoured out the canyons that drained through the washes leading to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. State and Federal groups maintaining the camp sites yielded to mother nature and directed their resources to maintaining the navigability of the unimproved roads traversing some of the most beautiful scenery in the southwest.
Starting in the mid-to-late 1800’s, this part of Nevada was a hub of mines, small towns, and the railroads built to serve the mining economy. Until World War II, small independent railroads moved gold and other mineral ores from mines to nearby smelters until prices for the finished products rendered mining no longer profitable. The railroads were abandoned. Most of the track disappeared from the landscape, and many old mines and towns were deserted. A few mines remained under private ownership and fewer still were active, reflecting the improved price of their ore. Consequently, few people would take notice of the sound produced by detonating a small explosive device.
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John Moore and his son Chip disembarked from their anchored houseboat in pursuit of radiation. They trudged through the small ravine just north of the shore exposed by the receding water levels in Lake Mead. They traversed land that once had been underwater since Hoover Dam was finished and the lake filled.
Chip stopped to remove his cherished Geiger Counter from his backpack. Normal background radiation was supposed to produce readings of 40-60 counts per minute more-or-less. Almost immediately Chip’s device registered just shy of 5,000 counts per minute. John knew nothing about radiation except that less was better than more. And reading the literature accompanying the kit suggested much lower readings were typical. Concerned, John suggested to Chip they return to the boat, since it looked like it might rain. No one wanted to be in a wash with a storm nearby. Chip was too occupied with the wildly ticking Geiger counter to look around. If he had, he would have noticed the bright sunny sky and the complete absence of cloud formations.
That evening, with the houseboat anchored on the opposite side of Lake Mead, John waited for Chip to fall asleep. Later, John walked out on the deck and activated the Geiger Counter. The device reflected the expected 40 or so counts per minute.
The next morning when John returned the houseboat to the marina, he mentioned the higher Geiger Counter readings to the marina manager who assured him the device was probably inaccurate and in need of calibration. The manager watched John and the boy return to their car and exit the parking lot. Once they were out of sight he gazed toward the distant northern shore deep in thought. Finally, he removed his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the telephone number for the regional office of Homeland Security. “Hey, Lem, this is Walter at the marina. Do you guys know about higher radiation levels being reported on the north shore?”