WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A vestige of the Cold War may fade into history as the government moves forward with plans to close the Tonopah Test Range, a central Nevada proving ground for ballistics and bombing experiments performed for the military and nuclear weapons managers, before the end of 2010.

Since the mid-1950s, the site about 30 miles south of Tonopah has been a test facility for weapons components developed by the Department of Energy and its predecessors, and artillery experiments conducted for the Pentagon.

Stealth technology that resulted in the F-117 fighter-bomber and the B-2 bomber was developed at the range in the 1970s. A crash program tested "bunker busters" for Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s.

But the federal agency that manages the nation's nuclear weapons complex is pursuing a reorganization and downsizing that includes ceasing operations at the highly instrumented, 280-square mile site adjacent to the Nellis Test and Training Range, according to officials and government documents.

A shutdown "is significant, but there are other places where one can do the kinds of things that we have done at Tonopah for so many years," Troy Wade of Las Vegas said. The former head of defense programs for the Department of Energy said the range was as much a part of Cold War history as the Nevada Test Site.

Officials with the National Nuclear Security Adminstration cited budget costs. Figures were not immediately available.

Thomas D'Agostino, deputy administrator for defense programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said much data has been compiled from bomb drops and other Tonopah experiments.

Now, he said, "We don't believe it is necessary to fund a special range for that activity." The NNSA will study whether the flight-testing mission can be transferrred to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, or to the Nevada Test Site.

The plan surprised Nye County leaders.

"This is pretty dismaying to me," County Commissioner Joni Eastley said. "It could have a profound impact on the Tonopah community. There are quite a number of people from Tonopah who work there."

The NNSA on Thursday announced scoping meetings as it begins environmental studies for a sprawling reorganization also affecting weapons labs and factories in Tennessee, New Mexico, California, Texas, Missouri and South Carolina.

The reorganization could have other ramifications for Nevada. Over time, more plutonium and enriched uranium will likely be shipped for safekeeping at the Device Assembly Facility, the secured bunker in the interior of the Nevada Test Site.

The NNSA earlier this year completed the movement of roughly two tons of special nuclear materials to the test site bunker from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Studies also will examine the possible expansion of large scale non-nuclear hydrodynamic and high explosives testing, according to testimony D'Agostino gave to Congress earlier this year.

Officials have declined to comment whether that might mean more projects like the Divine Strake non-nuclear explosion that was shelved earlier this year in the wake of pressure from Nevada and Utah leaders and environmental groups.

A meeting on the NNSA reorganization will be held Nov. 28 in Las Vegas, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and again from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Cashman Center.

Under the NNSA's preferred plan, the Tonopah site would close by the end of September 2010.