Columnist Jeff German: Exposing Yucca problems tough task

Friday, May 30, 2003 | 5:27 a.m.

JOE CARSON, a well-known Department of Energy whistle-blower, has some advice for any of his colleagues looking to expose safety problems at Yucca Mountain.

"If you can live with yourself looking the other way," he said, "look the other way."

That's not what Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign want to hear as they struggle to get Yucca Mountain whistle-blowers to expose the troubles within the high-level nuclear waste project, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But it's the reality the senators face in Nevada's battle to prove that Yucca Mountain is unsafe to store the nation's deadly nuclear waste.

The DOE simply has become too good at making life miserable for those who try to expose wrongdoing with its ranks -- something Carson knows all too well.

Reid and Ensign got a taste of the difficulties in bringing forward DOE whistle-blowers at last Wednesday's hearing in Las Vegas on concerns about whether the DOE can assure Americans that Yucca Mountain is a suitable dumpsite.

Two Yucca Mountain employees who had raised concerns about the DOE's quality assurance program, Donald Harris and Robert Clark, backed out of the hearing at last minute after the DOE discouraged their testimony.

Their reluctance to testify did not surprise the 49-year-old Carson -- a professional engineer who has been battling the DOE for more than 11 years since blowing the whistle on safety violations at the agency's nuclear research laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Carson, who has his own website that calls for more DOE accountability, telephoned me from Oak Ridge after last Wednesday's column on the Yucca Mountain hearing to offer his take on what lies ahead for anyone willing to take on the DOE.

"Your life and your liberty are not in jeopardy, but everything else of value to you is, including your professional and personal reputation," he said.

Then there's the worst part: The problems the whistle-blower brings to light rarely get fixed.

Instead of addressing the concerns, Carson said, the DOE, like many federal agencies, tries to discredit the employee stepping forward. In Carson's case, the DOE spread false rumors about him in the workplace, isolated him in a small windowless office, stripped him of his ability to conduct safety inspections and tried to take away his security clearance so that he could be fired.

Carson still works at the Oak Ridge facility, but he said he's in a dead-end job with no real responsibilities. His career with the government, for all intents and purposes, ended 11 years ago when he first spoke out.

He is an example of why there is very little incentive for Yucca Mountain whistle-blowers to step forward within the DOE and why Reid and Ensign have a such a tough road ahead of them in this fight.

The challenge is to find people like Carson who won't look the other way.

Late in the week there was some encouraging news from Margaret Chu, who oversees the Yucca Mountain project for the DOE. Chu informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has the responsibility of licensing the project, that she was taking steps to make employees feel free to raise safety concerns without threats of harassment and retaliation.

But it remains to be seen whether Chu is serious or doing this for show to help the NRC speed up the licensing process. Everyone on Team Nevada still believes the fix is in at the NRC, whether the dumpsite is safe or not.

If Chu wants to prove her sincerity, however, she'll let Yucca Mountain whistle-blowers like Donald Harris and Robert Clark talk freely to Congress -- and then pat them on the back.