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By Tom Gorman
Times Staff Writer
November 27 2002
LAS VEGAS -- Nevada's congressional delegation is demanding an
investigation into claims that the Energy Department ignored
consultants' misgivings about the use of Yucca Mountain to store
nuclear waste -- and then punished the critics.
The allegations bolster concerns that the White House is
"charging forward with so [few] facts" in support of
the $70-billion project, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday.
"Scientists who don't agree with the plan are given short
shrift," Reid said. "It's obvious that Yucca Mountain
is on the fast track, because of the strength of the power
industry in this administration."
President Bush, with congressional support and at the urging of
the nuclear power industry, has championed burying the waste at
Yucca Mountain because storage space is running out at the
nation's nuclear power plants. Nevada has filed various lawsuits
to stop the project, which the government hopes to open in 2010.
Reid and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) asked late Monday for a
congressional investigation into the claims that the Energy
Department shrugged off scientific anxieties about the project.
"We are extremely concerned about these troubling reports of
significant quality-assurance problems and mistreatment of
federal employees, who have attempted to identify and inform
others of these problems," they wrote.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the agency
"thoroughly and completely stands behind our scientific
studies."
The final arbiter in assessing the integrity of the studies will
be the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must license the
facility, he said.
The senators' letter was triggered by a report in the Las Vegas
Review-Journal newspaper that a consulting science engineer on
the project was fired and a quality-assurance manger was
reassigned after raising concerns about studies that led to the
selection of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to
store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste.
The fired employee, Jim Mattimoe, won a job-reinstatement order
from the Department of Labor that is being appealed by his former
employer. In the meantime, he is working at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The senators said they also had received anonymous letters that
raised the specter that a "significant" amount of
project data had been lost.
Davis said he knew of no data loss and that there are several
backups of the computerized data used to generate modeling
programs of Yucca's operations.
The senators asked David Walker, who heads the General Accounting
Office -- the investigative arm of Congress -- to look into
"the treatment of whistle-blowers at the Yucca Mountain
project and the quality-assurance problems raised by these and
other whistle-blowers."
Nevada's two House members also weighed in.
"Serious doubts and concerns about Yucca Mountain's
suitability just continue to mount," Republican Rep. Jim
Gibbons said. "It is time to stop the project now, before
it's too late."
In a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Democratic Rep.
Shelley Berkley said the reports "make apparent that [the
Energy Department] is covering up persistent problems." She
asked for assurances from Abraham that whistle-blowers "are
protected and treated as a valuable and necessary part" of
his staff.
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| Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times |
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