Salmon Site is a tract of land in Lamar County,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

, near Baxterville. The tract is located over a geological formation known as the Tatum Salt Dome and is the location of the only nuclear weapons test detonations known to have been performed in the eastern United States. Two underground detonations, a joint effort of the

United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...

and the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...

, took place under the designation of Project Dribble, part of a larger program known as

Vela Uniform Vela Uniform was an element of Project Vela conducted jointly by the United States Department of Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its purpose was to develop seismic methods for detecting underground nuclear testing, and it involved ...

(aimed at assessing remote detonation detection capabilities). The first test, known as the Salmon Event, took place on October 22, 1964. It involved detonation of a 5.3 kiloton device at a depth of . The second test, known as the Sterling Event, took place on December 3, 1966 and involved detonation of a 380-ton device suspended in the cavity left by the previous test. Further non-nuclear explosive tests were later conducted in the remaining cavity as part of the related Project Miracle Play. In October 2006, responsibility for the site was transferred to the US Department of Energy's Office of Legacy Management. A plaque mounted on a short stone pillar marks the site. On Wednesday, December 15, 2010, the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

transferred the Salmon Site, or Tatum Salt Dome as it's more commonly known, back to the state of Mississippi. Mississippi Secretary of State

Delbert Hosemann Charles Delbert Hosemann Jr. (born June 30, 1947) is an American politician serving as the 33rd lieutenant governor of Mississippi, since January 2020. From 2008 to 2020, he served as the secretary of state of Mississippi. Early life Hosemann w ...

said in a press release that the majority of the will be used for timber but an undetermined portion will be open for public access. Access to the Salmon Site had previously been restricted and monitored by the federal government since the tests were first conducted in 1964 and 1966. A granite monument surrounded by test wells marks the site of the nuclear bomb tests, in a clearing surrounded by a Mississippi state timber preserve.

References

{{US Nuclear Tests American nuclear weapons testing Nuclear test sites American nuclear test sites Salt domes

See also

References