Thursday, February 12, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NUCLEAR WASTE PROJECT: Reid urges Yucca halt

Inspectors must test for hazards from tailings, senator says

Photos by John Gurzinski. Julio Herrera, right, grabs some scrap material Wednesday from Glen Jacobson while Kenny Noyes, left, hoists a piece of wood onto a train Wednesday inside the tunnel that loops through Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Tailings from the construction of the five-mile Yucca Mountain tunnel are piled Wednesday east of the tunnel's north entrance. Workers say they have lung problems they attribute to toxic dusts inhaled while working on the nuclear waste dump. Buildings and temporary structures stand adjacent to rock tailings Wednesday in the north portal area at Yucca Mountain. The tailings were unearthed during excavation of a five-mile tunnel.

Sen. Harry Reid on Wednesday called for an immediate shutdown of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project until inspectors can determine whether rock tailings piled near the repository tunnel pose health hazards.

Reid, D-Nev., said the tunnel and other portions of the work area should be sealed off "until they can gauge what the problem is and determine whether it is safe."

Department of Energy officials did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, and it was not known how much ongoing research is taking place at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Allen Biaggi, administrator of the Nevada Environmental Protection Division, said this week he was dispatching an inspector to examine volcanic rock tailings unearthed during excavation of the 25-foot diameter exploratory tunnel that was carved five miles into the mountain between 1994 and 1997.

The tailings are piled about 30 feet high and stretch the length of at least two football fields east of the tunnel's north portal, adjacent worker facilities.

Biaggi agreed to have the tailings inspected following allegations by former Yucca Mountain tunnel workers about lung problems they attributed to toxic dusts inhaled during work activity.

State officials have the authority to inspect the material as a possible air quality hazard under the Clean Air Act.

Reid said he was awaiting a response from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to a Jan. 29 letter inquiring about health and safety protections at the Yucca site.

In the meantime, Reid said he planned to ask Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Leavitt and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao what resources are available to the state of Nevada and to workers who believe their health was harmed.

The Energy Department acknowledged last month that workers may have been exposed to fibrous silica dust during tunnel excavation until respirator protections were improved and enforced.

The department has offered free health screenings for silicosis, a disease that can progressively clog lung capacity and lead to death.

But one former tunnel supervisor, Gene Griego of North Las Vegas, said the respirators offered little protection against small-diameter fibers of erionite, a mineral that can cause a fatal cancer.

Meanwhile, the former federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration industrial hygienist who was a contractor on the Yucca Mountain Project said Wednesday he warned DOE officials about the hazards from erionite in the early 1990s before the tunnel-boring effort.

Jacob Paz, who has a doctorate in environmental health science, said he wrote a memo in 1991 for a DOE contractor in Nevada advising that erionite is a carcinogen that poses an occupational health hazard at Yucca Mountain.

"If you drill, you're going to have a problem," he said, recalling the memo.

"What's happening here is there was a (lapse) in enforcement (by) DOE," said Paz, who in the past has alerted state officials about his conclusions on fibrous minerals in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain and the nearby Nevada Test Site

Reid, born and raised in the mining town of Searchlight, said he was troubled by the reports. His father, also named Harry, was a hard-rock miner who suffered from silicosis. He committed suicide in 1972.

"This isn't 50 years ago when people didn't quite understand about silica," Reid said. "I can't imagine they allowed this to happen to these men."

Dry-drilling techniques were employed in the Yucca tunnel, former workers said.

Although water would calm dust, scientists feared it would interfere with experiments testing how fluids traveled through the volcanic rock, the workers said.

Three other members of Nevada's congressional delegation said they backed Reid's call for a site work stoppage.

"I'd love to see that happen, but I don't expect it," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Ensign said he encouraged more inspections by state and federal authorities.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., compared the Yucca Mountain employees with Nevada Test Site workers who contracted silicosis after tunneling for underground nuclear weapons tests.

Congress in 2000 and 2001 passed bills offering $150,000 compensation to nuclear workers in Nevada and other states who contracted silicosis, chronic beryllium disease or cancers that could be traced to job-related exposures.

Berkley and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said they were researching whether Yucca Mountain workers might qualify under the nuclear worker law.

"This is no different from the 1950s and 1960s when the government lied to test site workers and told them they were safe," Berkley said.

"From a congressional standpoint, if this is one more example of shoddy work, we will elevate it to the other members (of Congress) so they realize what is happening," Porter said.