"We don't want any type of testing that's going to promote war," Budge said. "I don't believe them when they say it's harmless. I think the government's trying to put one over on us."

Bob Welti was one of several attendees who spoke to the crowd during an impromptu rally held near the end of the 2 1/2-hour meeting.

"Why don't they do the test in Washington D.C.?" said Welti, garnering applause from several dozen people who stood in a circle around him.

In their letter, Matheson and Hatch wrote that the format "confused" some attendees, who did not know which expert to talk with about a topic. Some said they received inconsistent answers.

"Of course, this only increases the much-deserved distrust many Utahns have toward statements made by the federal government regarding radiation and activities at the Nevada Test Site," according to the letter.

Among the many concerns of opponents of the test is that the blast will stir up and blow downwind radioactive- contaminated dust from the area where nuclear bomb testing took places decades earlier.

They asked DTRA for additional public sessions, where attendees could ask government experts questions on the record and all the attendees could hear the answers.

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