Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

DOE failed to alert workers to disease risk

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department was warned of the dangers of silica at Yucca Mountain years before it told workers of the threat, department documents show.

Memos and e-mails sent over several years show that key managers were told there was silica dust, which can lead to the fatal lung disease silicosis, in the mountain's tunnels during and after the main tunnel of the proposed nuclear waste repository was dug.

The documents, which are public and part of the department's material supporting its license application to build the repository, show that the department failed to follow up on plans to protect workers.

And, the documents show, the department waited almost three years to notify workers after being warned that it needed to do so.

"The Department of Energy sent their workers into that mountain knowing full well of the presence of silica and knowing full well that exposure to silica can cause death," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. " DOE also knew that exposure is 100 percent preventable, but did nothing that would have protected these workers."

Reid held a Senate subcommittee field hearing in Las Vegas earlier this year. Workers now ill from their time in the mountain talked about their experiences.

"The fact that the DOE withheld this information from the workers at the Yucca Mountain site is completely irresponsible and further proves the reckless fashion in which this project is being handled," Reid said.

The Energy Department did not respond to several requests for comment.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called the attitude shown in the document "the height of arrogance."

"Rather than just a case of negligence or carelessness, these documents indicate that DOE knew its actions were wrong and that workers should have been told years earlier about the dangers created by tunneling work without proper protection," she said.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said the Energy Department chose to "ignore the danger and put their employees at risk in order to keep the Yucca Mountain Project on schedule."

"If the Department of Energy has such blatant disregard for the life, health and safety of their own employees, how can we trust they will protect the health and safety of the American public by storing 77,000 tons of high level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain?" he said.

Several Energy Department contractors are facing a class-action lawsuit filed in District Court earlier this year. The lawsuit is led by former Yucca Mountain employee Gene Griego, who worked at Yucca Mountain from 1993 to 2002, during the research phase, and was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease last year.

The department said it created its screening program after employees, like Griego, raised concerns about their exposure in September 2003. It acknowledged worker protections were not strongly enforced during times workers could be exposed, and documents show it knew of the potential health risk to the workers but still did not notify them until this year.

An April 2001 memo shows the department knew the severity of keeping the exposure a secret as well as the importance of getting workers tests for disease.

"An issue concerning silica exposures will become more visible as time goes by," according to an April 4, 2001, memo labeled "sensitive" from department Industrial Hygienist Phillip Boehme to Suzanne Mellington, assistant manager of the office of project execution. "Workers in the early days of Yucca Mountain were exposed to silica without respiratory protection. It is advisable to medically monitor them through the rest of their lives."

He recommended that "all exposed employees from the early years must be identified" and contacted, even if they no longer work for the department.

Boehme even said the program "may become newsworthy" and "illnesses may become subject of lawsuits, even class action."

"We should begin a coordinated effort," he wrote. "Lawsuits, public affairs and medical surveillance will be shared problems."

Three different memos, two from 2001 and one from 2002, from Wilbert Townsend, an engineering specialist, show raised silica levels long after the drilling stopped and that the limits the department was using were outdated or lab reports were wrong.

On Feb. 13, 2002, Townsend monitored levels inside the mountain and found that people working in certain areas at that time would be overexposed in about four hours without appropriate protection.

"This is still dangerous," said attorney Joe Egan. "This is years after the digging."

After examining the documents, Egan, of Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch and Cynkar, one of the law firms representing Griego and the other plaintiffs in the class-action suit, said he has found similar ones showing the department delayed getting the message to workers.

"These show they anticipated it, yet still did not have the courtesy to tell these people they should be going to the doctor," Egan said. "DOE (the Energy Department) actually set up procedures and requirements but the contractors said no."

Egan also represents the state in its battle against the Yucca project, but the state is not a party to the silicosis case.

The documents essentially paint a chronology of the Energy Department's knowledge of the problems with silica and show that the department was slow to act despite warnings.

Glenn Milligan, manager of the Safety and Health Complication Department, sent a letter to project manager Carl Gertz outlining a silica sampling plan for the project in July 1992, four months before the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issued a nationwide alert about silicosis to any workers involved in rock drilling.

However, an evaluation of training and tunnel operations from July 18, 1994, to Aug. 12, 1994, found there was no safety training for supervisors who specifically worked with the tunnel boring machine.

The project also had problems equipping workers with safety equipment to protect against silicosis.

In August 1994 Wendy Dixon, the project's assistant manager for environment, safety and health, wrote Daniel Koss, the technical project officer for the site characterization office, that those working in the tunnel "must use appropriate respiratory protection" and the appropriate sampling should occur to monitor the exposure.

Margaret Chu, the project's current director, told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in February that dust masks were available but more advanced respiratory protection was not available -- or their use enforced -- until 1996.

In March 1996 Dixon told L. Dale Foust, technical project officer for the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, that disposable respirators did not satisfy the required protection needed, so a better plan and stronger respirators were needed.

The documents also show a pattern of warnings, concerns and issues with silica:

"Visitors exposed to these operations may exceed the exposure levels for silica," Baumeister wrote. "Visitors should have the capability to don respirators during their visit."

"There are too many sources of dust, the cost is unreasonable and the implementation time it too long," Kissell wrote. "It has been suggested that new ventilation lines be established to remove dusty air from the alcoves. This many help a little but suffers from cost and implementation time problems."

"If (the Mine Safety and Health Administration) had inspected the Yucca Mountain project as a regular mine, the 10 Compliance Assistance Visit notices given to the Department of Energy representatives would have been citations and a time limit for abatement would have been set," McAteer wrote.

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