YUCCA MOUNTAIN - 55% OF WORKERS THINK CONCERNS PROMPT RETALIATION

Benjamin Grove (Las Vegas Sun), "Yucca workers uneasy criticizing program", Las Vegas Sun, May 22, 2003

Yucca Mountain workers are not comfortable raising concerns about the project, a top Yucca auditor wrote to Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev. Workers believe that the project's "Concerns Program" has been corrupt, that the Energy Department Inspector General is compromised, and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission won't get involved, 14-year contractor employee Kristi Hodges wrote in a May 20 letter... Hodges also wrote that morale has fallen in the last few years among Yucca Mountain workers, and that 55 percent of project employees in a recent survey said they felt that they cannot raise concerns to managers without fear of retaliation.

Hodges is part of the project's Quality Assurance program... "QA professionals have to tell people what they don't want to hear -- that there are problems that have to be fixed," Hodges wrote. "Problems cost money, impact schedule and tend to get people in trouble. Lately we, the (Yucca) QA professionals, are the ones in trouble." ... Hodges wrote the seven-page letter in advance of a Senate hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Las Vegas. Ensign and Reid are conducting the hearing to explore Yucca project flaws... Hodges noted in her letter that there is no "technical smoking gun" that proves Yucca is an unsafe site to construct a nuclear waste repository.