BEATTY -- Not only Beatty residents, but people from Amargosa Valley and Tonopah and others from near the Nevada Test Site turned out for the Department of Energy's groundwater open house in Beatty Wednesday evening.

The DOE's efforts to track possible contamination of groundwater is of particular interest to people living downstream from underground nuclear tests that were conducted on Pahute Mesa, particularly those in Oasis Valley north of Beatty.

Current computer models predict contamination will flow beyond the boundaries of the test site by 2015. According to one of the maps on display at the open house, there is a "100 percent possibility that the maximum contaminant level will be exceeded in year 2015, based on the preliminary transport model."

That same map shows that area of 100 percent probability extending approximately one mile beyond the site boundary.

Underground Test Area Sub-Project Director Bill Wilburn said, however, the models are "over-predictive because of their conservative nature."

The fastest-moving radioactive contaminant in groundwater is tritium.

The good news is that tritium has a relatively short half-life and will probably not be dangerously radioactive by the time it gets very far.

Based on the newest models of groundwater movement, DOE is going to add nine new monitoring wells in the next three to four years.

Contamination has not been found in any of the existing monitoring wells, but the first of the new wells, as was suggested by the Nevada Test Site Community Advisory Board, will be drilled on Pahute Mesa in an area where it is almost certain to intercept some.