Yucca official denies pressure on whistleblowers

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Aug. 8, 2003 | 11:24 a.m.

WASHINGTON--The Energy Department did not intimidate Yucca Mountain project whistleblowers from testifying at a May hearing, project director Margaret Chu wrote in a letter sent to the Senate last month.

Chu, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Mangement, sent the an eight-page letter to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., on July 8. It was Chu's answer to his June 18 request that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham respond to charges of whistleblower intimidation within the department.

"I have looked into those accusations, and I am confident that they are entirely unfounded," Chu wrote. "I am not aware of nor would I tolerate any effort by the Department or its contractors to intimidate DOE or contractor employees from testifying or otherwise coming forward to share their views."

At issue are the canceled appearance of Donald Harris, an employee of contractor Navarro Research and Engineering, and Robert Clark, the project's former quality assurance director, at the May 28 Senate Energy and Water subcommittee hearing in Las Vegas.

Harris was on an audit team that found flaws in the project's quality assurance program. He was reassigned from that team and then reinstated later.

Clark was transferred to another division in 2001, supposedly after urging corrective action for the program. Neither could be reached for comment.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., suspected that department supervisors coerced the whistleblowers to stay away from the hearing and, in an appearance on CNN in June, even asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate the matter further. Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said "not surprisingly" they have not heard back from Ashcroft.

Chu wrote that Senate staff and the senators approached two employees to testify and Reid also sent a letter to her asking that she "'compel' the testimony of Mr. Clark and that I 'encourage' the testimony of Mr. Harris."

After this, Chu insists in her letter that she felt it was important the department and Navarro "make clear to Mr. Clark and Mr. Harris, respectively, that DOE would not pressure them one way or the other and that whether they testified in this circumstance was their personal decision to make."

She also included a memo from Navarro Program Manager Bob Hasson, dated May 23, the Friday before Memorial Day and just days before the hearing took place that management "took no position on whether a Navarro Quality Services-- employee participates in the field hearing."

"Each of you should know that your decision to participate will not affect your employment status," Hasson wrote.

But in a separate letter to Reid, also sent May 23, Chu said it would not be appropriate for her to order Clark to attend the hearing since he no longer worked for the auditing group at Yucca.

"There are definitely some contradictions between the two letters," Hafen said.

She said the letter, which will be entered into the hearing record, and overall matter are still being examined.

DOE spokesman Joe Davis said pressure may have been put on the employees to testify when they didn't want to.

"Clearly the allegations that the Department of Energy and Yucca Mountain Project have intimidated witnesses are false and misleading -- in fact it could be the other way around," said department spokesman Joe Davis, noting that Reid and Ensign made the allegations even after Chu said it would not be appropriate for her to order anyone to testify.

He also noted that neither senior department staff nor anyone in the project office were invited to testify.