Editorial: Lots of questions for Yucca managers

Wednesday, May 7, 2003 | 9:14 a.m.

A quality assurance worker was fired two years ago by a Yucca Mountain contractor after raising concerns and then questioning the manner in which the concerns were addressed. The Department of Labor reviewed the case and determined the worker was unjustly terminated. More recently, there have been conflicting accounts about what happened to three other employees of the same Yucca contractor who were part of a quality assurance review team. One of the members said they were reassigned after uncovering flaws in Yucca work procedures. The contractor disputes the allegation. And then there was this statement last month from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission manager: "Quality is not being built into the (Yucca Mountain) Project."

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., have announced a May 28 hearing in Las Vegas on the quality issues surrounding Yucca Mountain. We hope the senators subpoena top managers of the Yucca project and compel them to give straight answers. Only 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the mountain is being prepared by the Department of Energy to contain 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years. On a project this dangerous, there simply cannot be an aura of mystery surrounding the issue of quality.