Yucca Mountain Project experiencing brain drain

WASHINGTON -- The acting head of the Yucca Mountain Project is retiring at the end of the month along with another top official, the latest to depart the shrinking nuclear waste program, the Department of Energy confirmed.

Christopher Kouts, 59, worked in a variety of management and technical jobs during 24 years on the project. He was the No. 2 manager and became acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in January after the departure of Director Ward Sproat.

Russ Dyer, 62, the project's chief scientist, also has announced retirement effective the end of the year, the department said.

Further, Allen Benson, the project's director of communications and outreach, said he will be retiring "within the next couple of months."

They are in the latest wave of departures as the Department of Energy ratchets down its effort to build a nuclear waste repository at the once-booming desert site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Obama administration has declared that placing used nuclear fuel within the mountain is no longer its preferred strategy for managing the waste.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said earlier this year a blue-ribbon commission will be formed to identify alternatives, although nothing further has been announced.

In the meantime, the Yucca Mountain work force that was centered in Las Vegas has dropped from 2,750 people over three years through several rounds of budget cuts engineered by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the program's leading critic in Congress and also the Senate's majority leader.

The most recent job cuts earlier this year put the project at about 800 workers, but departures through the summer and fall have trimmed the population to about 625, Benson said.

Most of those who remain have been assigned to respond to technical questions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is evaluating a Yucca Mountain license application that DOE filed in June 2008.

There have been indications that effort will be dropped as well at some point.

An internal DOE budget document that was disclosed last month suggested the Obama administration budget for fiscal 2011 will contain no more than $46.2 million earmarked for worker transition, site remediation and archiving data produced during more than two decades of research.

Sources who follow the program closely say it is likely that amount will be cut even further by the time the administration's budget for 2011 is announced in February.

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.