Friday, February 20, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Probe of tunnel notes ordered

Energy Department may expand investigation beyond altered records of workers' exposure to harmful dust

WASHINGTON -- Energy Department officials have initiated an investigation into whether Yucca Mountain Project field notes were altered to misrepresent tunnel workers' exposure to harmful silica dust.

The request is expected to form a base for a broader probe into worker health conditions during early excavation and peak tunneling at the nuclear waste repository site a decade ago, Energy Department officials said Thursday.

Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, requested the investigation in a memo Wednesday. She attached excerpts from a 2002 deposition given by Judy Kallas, a former industrial hygienist on the project who alleged that field notes were changed.

Chu called on Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman to investigate how silica dust levels were recorded during construction of the Yucca Mountain exploratory tunnel.

The request followed a Review-Journal report this week on Kallas' allegations.

Kallas discussed the issue in a deposition taken Oct. 16, 2002, as part of an unrelated gender discrimination lawsuit. She testified a supervisor ordered her to falsify her field notes to reflect lower levels of silica.

The Energy Department is attempting to contact more than 1,000 former workers and inviting them to free silicosis screenings. Several former project workers reported contracting lung diseases they believe stem from inhalation of silica and cancer-causing fibers in the tunnel.

The program's present-day managers are trying to get their arms around the controversy, which reaches back years but came to light only in the past few months, Chu said Thursday.

"I want to emphasize our commitment to address past silica issues responsibly and as well to maintain a safe environment for our current workers," Chu said.

Besides asking for an investigation of the issues raised by Kallas, Chu said she wanted to know why Energy Department officials were not informed of the allegation until they read it in the newspaper.

In an interview this week, Kallas, 52, elaborated on her deposition.

Kallas, who has a master's degree from the University of Tennessee, described how her personal field notes were confiscated.

Kallas said she was told what to write about the length of time that monitors recorded airborne dust levels inside the tunnel. She said those notes were taken as well and made the basis for official reports.

On paper, the dust concentrations would appear to be diluted by time, or lower than they really were inside the tunnel, she said.

Filters where the dust accumulated inside the monitors were sent to a laboratory for verification and analysis of what type of particles were in the dust.

Kallas said her notes were altered quite often during the four months she worked for project contractor Kiewit Construction, from April 16, 1996, to Aug. 9, 1996. Kiewit constructed the tunnel from 1994 to 1997.

Kallas was fired by the company for "disregard of authority and directions of supervisor," according to a copy of her employee profile.

Officials with Kiewit's headquarters in Nebraska have not returned a telephone call placed earlier this week seeking their comment.

When she tried to report concerns to managers about altering her field, Kallas said, notes she was told to follow her supervisor's instructions

"I said what they were telling me to do was illegal. Then they reminded me that the only reason I was there was because DOE required somebody with my credentials to be there," she said.

Chu and Deputy Director John Arthur said Thursday they are seeking to broaden the investigation beyond the allegation of falsified documents.

They said they want a picture of worker conditions in the period between the initiation of mining activities, in 1992, and the 1995-96 period, when tunnel ventilation was improved and health protections were upgraded and enforced.

The Energy Department has acknowledged officials were aware of potentially hazardous silica at Yucca Mountain, but workers were not given effective respiratory protections until 1996.

Until then, they were issued dust masks, but their use was not enforced and their effectiveness was dismissed by workers.

"We don't know anything about it," said Chu, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2002 to lead the Yucca Mountain Project, which aims to entomb the nation's deadliest nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"What was DOE's role at the time? What was required and why was it not enforced?"

Chu and Arthur made their comments during a scheduled Yucca Mountain Project management meeting held outside Washington and in interviews afterward.

Arthur said program managers in Las Vegas were in contact with Friedman's representatives to discuss the parameters of an investigation.

Arthur said an investigation could include the review of government contracts with companies involved in Yucca Mountain Project construction, field reports from the period and other documents.

"There are volumes of documents that we want them to look at," Arthur said.

Investigators working for the inspector general were made aware of Yucca Mountain health concerns in August 2003 by Gene Griego, a Los Alamos, N.M., national laboratory employee who worked as a tunnel supervisor.

Wilma Slaughter, a spokeswoman for Friedman, confirmed the inspector general's office received Chu's request. She said it has been incorporated with other material that is being evaluated.