WASHINGTON -- A former Yucca Mountain director said Thursday that flagging "political will" threatens to sink the proposed Nevada repository, but he maintained the project is worth fixing as the best solution for nuclear waste storage.

"I think the program is in jeopardy," said Lake Barrett, an Energy Department manager who retired in 2002. "Everybody recognizes the political problems, which are real and they want to find a, quote, better way.

"I would like to find a better way, but we should not lose what we have until we have a better way in hand," Barrett said.

Barrett discussed the Yucca project in an interview that came on the heels of an opinion article he wrote that was published Thursday in Energy Daily, a widely read newsletter.

Apart from science presentations, the former DOE official's remarks were his first public comments on Yucca Mountain policy since he left the department. He was principal deputy director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management from 1993 to 2002, and stepped in as acting director five times.

Barrett was running the program in 2002 when President Bush and Congress formalized the selection of the Yucca site. Since then, the repository has been mired in delays amid legal, financial and management setbacks that have pushed a projected opening to 2017 and beyond.

In Energy Daily, Barrett wrote that Congress singling out Nevada for nuclear waste in 1987 "was detrimental" and set the stage for years of conflict between the federal government and the state.

"But the fact is that Yucca Mountain is as good an overall site as can be found in the United States for long-term nuclear materials management," he wrote. "There has been nothing scientifically discovered indicating the site should be disqualified."

Barrett said he decided to speak out after Edward McGaffigan, a departing member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told reporters last month that DOE should set aside the Yucca site and "go back to the beginning" in search of a repository solution that could be sold to states willing to host a site.

"I believe this nation needs to address these issues fairly, but not by abandoning the only site we have," Barrett said in response.

He said he supported forming a high-level commission to examine the project, but in ways to improve the current program rather than scrapping it.

"A fundamental rewrite and do-over would not be helpful," he said.

In the interview, Barrett said the "political will" for Yucca Mountain among its traditional supporters has been tested by the rise of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, the project's most powerful critic.

"Mr. Reid is a powerful individual and wields a tremendous amount of influence," Barrett said. "It is very difficult for people to stand up."