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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A mobile radiation detection laboratory in Las Vegas is on its way to Alabama.
The Environmental Protection Agency said the Mobile Environmental Radiation Lab, which is two trailers that can be quickly sent to a suspected radiation release, left its former station at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus Monday afternoon.
The agency announced in March that it would combine the Vegas lab with a similar unit already housed in Montgomery, Alabama, in a push to cut costs.
The move comes despite concerns raised by nuclear safety advocates and lawmakers from Nevada and California, who worried about the western U.S. being vulnerable if radiation was suspected in an accident or terror attack.
The EPA maintains that the labs aren't used for emergency response.
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