Yucca project struggles to stay open after cuts

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, May 13, 2003 | 11:09 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is struggling to keep the Yucca Mountain project on track to meet key deadlines amid budget cuts, top project managers said today.

The project may lay off 50 to 60 workers in Nevada, further delay new studies and limit activity at the site, including visitor tours.

The plan for a high-level nuclear waste repository was dealt a crippling blow when Congress allocated just $460 million to the Yucca project the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, a $134 million cut from what the department requested, Yucca managers said.

The Energy Department has requested $591 million for the next fiscal year, though officials say they can get by on as little as $460 million.

The cuts have forced managers to tighten belts. At a meeting today in Washington, W. John Arthur, Energy Department deputy director for repository development, for the first time outlined a list of some results of the budget cuts:

"As you look at it, I guess that sounds pretty challenging," Arthur told the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which Congress appointed to oversee scientific work on Yucca.

Possible layoffs and reducing Yucca site activity were first announced last week.

Project managers have even considered shutting down the Yucca site, where a few experiments are ongoing, to save money, Arthur said. But a shutdown is not planned at this time, he said.

The board today also heard discussion on persistent problems in the project's Quality Assurance program from top project managers.

A recent internal survey showed a majority of project workers do not feel comfortable bringing their concerns about the project to their immediate supervisors, Arthur said. The survey polled 25 percent of the project's 2,000 workers, which includes federal Energy Department workers and contractors. Arthur today did not have the detailed results, which he just saw for the first time on Monday, he said.

"I wouldn't say morale is low, but there is a lot of frustration out there," Arthur told reporters during a break.

Arthur and Energy Department Yucca chief Margaret Chu said they were trying to create a new "culture" within the project in which workers would be more comfortable bringing concerns forward. Their message comes after several workers have said they were disciplined -- in one case fired -- after they shined a spotlight on alleged project flaws.

The department is scrambling to stay on target to meet two key deadlines: submitting its license application to the NRC by December 2004, and opening the repository to accept waste by 2010.

About 16 percent of the complex license application is complete, Arthur said. But he noted that "that's about where we should be right now" to meet the deadline.