Photos: Cleaning up Project Chariot

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The US Department of Energy conducted a press tour of the Project Chariot Site cleanup activities on Wednesday, August 6, 2014. In the late 50's the US Atomic Energy Commission looked at creating an artificial harbor at Cape Thompson on the shore of the Chukchi Sea on Alaska's North Slope by exploding nuclear bombs to blast out the harbor.

CAPE THOMPSON -- At the Project Chariot site, rusted-out pipes, wires and even a rotting fire extinguisher have lain on the tundra for more than 50 years, the last remnants of a plan to blast out a deep-water port in the Northwest Arctic using nuclear explosives.

And those last bits have left people who live in the region frustrated.

"It's a cover-up," said Point Hope Mayor Jack Schaefer, who has long been critical of the government's attempts to clean up the site over the last two decades.

Read more: Project Chariot cleanup proceeds, but community doubts linger