Friday, May 09, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

YUCCA COMPLAINTS: Settlement costs sound alarm

Fired employees worried about quality assurance

Kristi Hodges, an auditor for the Yucca Mountain Project's quality assurance contractor, Navarro Research and Engineering, talks this week about complaints she made to the DOE Inspector General staff based on information documented in the binders in front of her. Photo by K.M. Cannon/REVIEW-JOURNAL.

Yucca Mountain Project contractors have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle actions brought by fired employees who were concerned about quality assurance at the proposed nuclear waste burial site.

One of the settlements was for nearly $300,000, according to documents obtained through a Review-Journal Freedom of Information Act request. The other, made in February, was for an undisclosed amount of money.

But a lead auditor for a contractor on the project estimated the total amount of money spent in the cases to be "millions." Documents indicate a large portion would have come from the coffers of the Department of Energy, which wants to entomb 77,000 tons of high level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The auditor, Kristi Hodges, based the cost estimate on the amount paid in settlements, attorneys fees, time spent by government lawyers and funds paid to private, legal advisers on the cases.

Hodges also said in interviews this week she had alerted the Department of Energy Inspector General's staff two years ago to allegations of corruption and personnel problems in the quality assurance program but an investigation never materialized.

Hodges said while Yucca Mountain Project officials raced to complete site recommendation work for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, the quality assurance team was so inundated with responding to allegations that addressing deficiencies in computer models, software and data took a back seat.

"It was keeping us away from doing our jobs more than anything," she said about one of the legal actions.

Hodges' revelations come as Nevada's senators prepare for a May 28 hearing in Las Vegas to address problems with the Yucca Mountain Project's quality assurance program.

In interviews this week, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the new information reinforces their concerns that project funds have been misspent.

"My reaction is we've wasted billions of dollars constructing an unnecessary facility and now we find that they're paying million of dollars in hush money, all to the detriment of the taxpayers," Reid said.

Ensign said, "There is the potential for some very serious violations that could potentially affect the quality of the program at Yucca Mountain and we need to get to the bottom of it."

He said if there is any appearance of cover-up or any problem with the project that "could harm the public safety, we'd take that very, very seriously."

Hodges led key audits of the Yucca Mountain Project including one that dealt with modeling the performance of the planned repository.

She first complained to the Inspector General's hot line in writing on Oct. 15, 2001. She then mailed documents to the Inspector General's office to support her claims five other times through January 2002.

"It's as if I don't exist," she said in an interview.

The corruption, she said, involved a system for fielding employee concerns. The so-called Concerns Program was set up so that workers could express their views on personnel matters and technical shortcomings with the Yucca Mountain Project without fear of retaliation.

One concern dealt with the firing of David Mitchell, an employee for Mactec Inc., a Colorado-based subcontractor. He wrote a letter to the company and Hodges' co-worker, James Mattimoe, a program manager for Science Applications International Corp., the Energy Department's quality assurance contractor at the time.

In that letter, Mitchell made allegations of harassment, theft and wrongdoing by the quality assurance team. Later, he revised the allegations to include a claim that Mattimoe's auditor certification was bogus.

In the end, both Mitchell and Mattimoe brought complaints against their former employers and benefitted through the settlements.

A Labor Department report states that Mitchell was fired from Mactec Inc. for "exhibiting hostile behavior towards a supervisor." He filed a complaint claiming he was wrongfully terminated for other reasons, but a Labor Department investigator found no merit to his case and recommended it be dismissed.

But rather than submitting to a hearing in which Mitchell's false allegations would have been aired, Mactec on Aug. 27, 2001, reached an out-of-court settlement for which the Department of Energy agreed to reimburse Mactec.

A new document obtained through the Review-Journal's Freedom of Information Act appeal shows that the Yucca Mountain Project contractor at the time, Science Applications International Corp., paid Mactec $294,521.86 for legal and settlement costs in the Mitchell case.

Mattimoe was fired on Aug. 24, 2001, three days before the settlement.

Under a whistle-blower law, Mattimoe filed a wrongful termination complaint against his former employer, Navarro Research and Engineering, which had taken over the Science Applications quality assurance contract. Last year, Labor Department officials ordered Navarro to reinstate Mattimoe, expunge his personnel file and reimburse him for costs incurred.

Navarro initially pressed for an appeal, but ultimately agreed to settle out-of-court with Mattimoe on Feb. 26, his attorney, Sangeeta Singal, confirmed this week. The settlement amount is confidential.

Allen Benson, an Energy Department spokesman for the Yucca Mountain Project, now known as the Office of Repository Development, said the agency was not a party to either settlement. He declined further comment.

Hodges said the Concerns Program was corrupt because documents about its investigations show witness interviews had been fabricated.

According to Hodges, project officials hired lawyers at significant expense to write a report that ultimately led to Mattimoe's firing.

The government had a contract to pay a Washington, D.C., firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, up to $500,000 to conduct an independent review of specific allegations and concerns, according to documents received by the Review-Journal. But a Labor Department probe into Mattimoe's wrongful termination complaint found that the law firm's report "was not more than a sophisticated recitation of anonymous charges."

Hodges said Mattimoe was never given a chance to refute the allegations that led to his firing. In the last binder Hodges sent to the Office of Inspector General, on Jan. 22, 2002, she urged the office to be independent in its review of her concerns. If it couldn't, she said, the "honorable thing" to do would be to pass the matter on to a higher authority. When the Review-Journal sought copies last year of documents from binders that Hodges mailed to the staff of DOE Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman, his principal deputy, Herbert Richardson sent a letter back, saying, "The OIG neither confirms nor denies the existence of any such records described in your request."

In December, the Review-Journal appealed, sending a Privacy Act release signed by Hodges.

This week, a spokeswoman for the Office of Inspector General, Wilma Slaughter, said the office intends to process the request "as expeditiously as possible."

Asked why an investigation into Hodges's claims never materialized, Slaughter said, "We have no comment on whether we would investigate a matter or not."

Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux, an outspoken critic of the Yucca Mountain Project, said quality assurance issues have raised questions about the validity of 20 years of scientific data about the repository site and whether the data can be verified for a belated licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff at the end of 2004.

"No one believes they would be going through these exercises, attacking employees who raised quality assurance concerns if, in fact, they had a good scientific program at Yucca Mountain that was valid," Loux said Wednesday.

He referred to an action last month in which three Navarro examiners were removed from their audit positions after they uncovered new quality control flaws in the project.

Regarding corruption in the Concerns Program, Hodges said, "Until these issues are appropriately investigated and addressed, it will be difficult to trust the project."