THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, September 18, 1995             TAG: 9509180052
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: YORKTOWN                           LENGTH: Medium:   55 lines

NUKE DRILL SET TO TEST RESPONSE TO AN ACCIDENT EXERCISE STARTS TODAY AT YORKTOWN AND CHEATHAM FACILITIES.

Beginning today, 1,600 federal, state and local workers will assemble at Yorktown Naval Weapons Station and Williamsburg's Cheatham Annex to practice what they would do in the event of a nuclear weapons accident.

It's not a tacit acknowledgment that Yorktown stores nuclear weapons, officials say, although anti-nuclear activists claim the depot is home to nearly 200 such weapons. On Thursday, officials said the exercise simply will allow authorities to practice the unique emergency response procedures such an accident would require. And they are doing it at Cheatham and at the adjacent Yorktown Weapons Station, the Atlantic Fleet's primary East Coast weapons storage depot, because the huge complex has the space and is close to Norfolk Naval Base.

The Norfolk base commander has responsibility for all naval nuclear accidents east of the Mississippi River.

The exercise, overseen by the federal Defense Nuclear Agency, will involve a broad cross-section of government workers from the Navy, the Energy Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 22 state agencies and some 40 separate fire and rescue squads. And its interagency cooperation, said Addison Slayton, the state's coordinator for emergency services, that will make or break the response to any disaster, nuclear or not.

The exercise, which will be carried out through Sept. 27 with weekend breaks, marks the first attempt at training Virginia agencies since 1983. That exercise was held in Nevada. Officials, who stress that the exercise will not involve actual nuclear weapons, say that most of exercise ``Display Select'' will take place behind government fences, far from the public eye.

Officials said participants won't know in advance what sorts of scenarios they will face.

``In a scripted exercise, you don't learn a heckuva lot,'' Slayton explained.

Local governments taking part include the counties of York, James City, Isle of Wight, Sussex and Gloucester, and the cities of Newport News, Williamsburg, Hampton, Poquoson, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Franklin and Virginia Beach.

U.S. military policy is to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons in any given location. But William M. Arkin, longtime anti-nuclear activist and co-author of the book, ``Nuclear Battlefields,'' says the Navy has 367 nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles in depots on the East and West coasts. Arkin said he feels strongly that Yorktown is the East Coast site, and believes it houses about half of the Tomahawks. Each missile is armed with a 150-kiloton warhead, Arkin said. by CNB