New Yucca project director meets with staff in Las Vegas

Thursday, May 2, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.

Margaret Chu, the Energy Department's new Yucca Mountain project director, is in Las Vegas this week to meet for the first time with the project's local staff.

Chu, based in Washington, has visited the proposed nuclear waste respository site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas before, and will not be visiting it this trip, Energy Department officials said.

Chu met Wednesday with department staffers and is meeting today with state and local government representatives, including officials from Clark, Nye, Lincoln and Inyo (Calif.) counties, Energy Department spokeswoman Gayle Fisher said. Chu also planned to meet with a representative with Citizen Alert, a local anti-Yucca group, Fisher said.

Energy Department officials would not disclose details of the briefings but described them as routine progress report meetings.

Chu arrived in Las Vegas Tuesday afternoon and will be leaving today or Friday.

President Bush nominated Chu director of the Energy Department's Civilian and Radioactive Waste Management Project office and the Senate confirmed the nomination. She was sworn in March 20. She replaced former acting director Lake Barrett. Chu, a physical chemist, was a longtime nuclear waste program manager at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.