The goal is to have all the sites completed by 2010, which means waste will either have been buried on site with a special liner or removed and stored somewhere, usually at a waste-storage facility in Utah near the Nevada border. Some of the waste is either treated or incinerated before it is taken to a waste facility.

"We can see an end in sight, which is something no one ever thought would happen," Reed said.

Little public interest

Over half of the $128 million in federal money budgeted for Dugway's cleanup has been spent. The rest of the funds will continue to come from the Department of Defense's "Defense Environmental Restoration Account."

As restoration efforts near completion, Reed credits the Restoration Advisory Board with smoothing out the process by acting as kind of a mediator between contractors and officials from Dugway and the state.

Still, it took three years for Dugway to drum up public interest to create a board in 1999, after remediation began in 1996. Larsen chalked up the lag in interest to research that showed there was no danger levels to people outside of Dugway's gates.

"There was minimal risk," he said. "You can't even measure it."

Larsen said an official board wasn't formed until after President Bill Clinton signed an executive order in the late 1990s that required all military bases to have a restoration advisory board. Tooele County health officials and emergency management workers were the first to sign on to Dugway's board, followed by residents of outlying communities.

Andrus said that outside of Dugway's boundaries, there are few residences close by, which may be one reason why more people don't attend the board meetings. One glitch in keeping the public informed, she added, has been inadequate updating of the board's Web site.

"You would think people living there would be interested," she said. "We can't get anyone interested in it."

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com