page_title: Frenchman Flat
section_title: Waste management
hierarchical_section_title: Frenchman Flat / Area 5 / Waste management
caption_attribution_description: English: Nevada Test Site, Area 5. Aerial View of the Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site.
context_page_description: Frenchman Flat is a hydrographic basin in the Nevada National Security Site south of Yucca Flat and north of Mercury, Nevada. The flat was used as an American nuclear test site and has a 5.8 sq mi dry lake bed that was used as a 1950s airstrip before it was chosen after the start of the Korean War for the Nevada Proving Grounds. Nellis Air Force Base land 12 mi × 30 mi was transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission on which Site Mercury was constructed on the flat for supporting American nuclear explosive tests. The 1951 Operation Ranger "Able" test was the first continental US nuclear detonation after the 1945 Trinity test, and Frenchman Flat also had the only detonation of an American artillery-fired nuclear projectile in the 1953 Upshot-Knothole Grable test using the M65 Atomic Cannon.
context_section_description: The Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site covers 732 acres (296 ha), a section of desert land used for low-level waste disposal. Mixed waste, including transuranic mixed waste, is stored.
caption: Aerial view of the Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site
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