Editorial: Big Dig has implications for Nevada

Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 | 9:01 a.m.

We don't have a nickname for the work going on at Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, although we could easily refer to it as the "Big Mistake." Gigantic tunnels and caverns are being built underneath the mountain to hold the nation's high-level nuclear waste until it ceases being a fatal threat to human beings. That would be several hundred thousand years from now, making the whole notion of underground burial -- in a seismically active area, no less -- preposterous on its face.

In Boston they do have a nickname for their biggest project. They call it the "Big Dig." It's a highway re-routing and rebuilding job that's been going on since 1991, around the time work on Yucca Mountain started. It's designed to streamline Boston's notorious traffic, and it involved tunneling under Boston Harbor to Logan Airport. The nearly finished project would merit only passing interest in Las Vegas except for two things: Hundreds of leaks are allowing millions of gallons of water to pour into the tunnel. And the co-manager of the Big Dig, Bechtel Corp., is the same corporation co-managing construction at Yucca Mountain.

Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, which is fighting against the opening of Yucca Mountain, told the Sun's Washington reporter, Benjamin Grove, that Bechtel's problems with the Big Dig were no surprise to him. Loux cited the many times Nevada has faulted Yucca Mountain contractors for flawed science and shoddy work. Bechtel and its partner at Yucca Mountain, Science Applications International Corp., are among the defendants in a lawsuit filed by some Yucca workers, who have alleged the companies ignored worker safety issues.

Bechtel, founded in 1898, is one of the world's biggest engineering, construction and project-management firms. Having completed thousands of projects all over the world, it is, on paper, a highly reputable company. But how can it explain away those leaks? Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney found the work so abominable that he called for the resignation of the head of the state's Turnpike Authority, which had oversight over Bechtel.

Here in Nevada, we must take note of this development in Boston and ask the logical question: If the Big Dig tunnel is not safe the moment it opens, how can we expect the tunnels inside Yucca Mountain, whose workmanship is being overseen by the same corporation, to be safe for several hundred thousand years?