Yucca Mountain Workers Exposed to Dangerous Dust

Digging techniques designed to protect the "scientific integrity" of a test tunnel at the US Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain project exposed more than a thousand workers to dangerous silica dust between 1992 and 1996, according to a DOE safety official. As many as 1500 workers may have been exposed to the dust, which can cause silicosis, a progressive and potentially fatal lung disease.

Yucca Mountain

Moisture is a critical issue in Yucca Mountain, which is slated to become the federal government's permanent repository for tens of thousands of tons of high−level radioactive nuclear waste. Pending approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—DOE plans to submit its license application in December—Yucca Mountain could begin to receive waste in 2010. Standards call for the waste to be isolated from the surrounding environment for at least 10 000 years—and that requires, among other things, an extremely dry facility.

Former employees have also claimed, and DOE officials have conceded, that tunnel workers weren't required by the DOE mining contractor to wear respirators or even facemasks during the first several years of tunneling. After a 1996 safety review by OCRWM, respirators were made mandatory and ventilation was significantly improved in the tunnel, according to testimony Runkle gave at a recent hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Runkle also said that a protection program established in 1998 has actively monitored workers and discovered only two confirmed cases of silicosis.

Gene Griego, the former tunnel worker who first alerted DOE to the problem, contends that there are scores of people affected by silicosis. He has filed a class−action lawsuit against the DOE contractors who oversaw the early tunneling.

DOE officials responded in January to complaints about the silica overexposure by setting up a medical screening program, which is run by the University of Cincinnati under the direction of OCRWM. Letters have been mailed to about 2400 current and former employees informing them of the program. Yucca Mountain workers who might have been exposed to high levels of silica dust and other potentially toxic materials are offered free silicosis screening. As of late March, 300 people had responded to the letter.

Senator Harry Reid (D−NV), a staunch opponent of the Yucca Mountain project since its inception in 1987, is highly critical of DOE's handling of the silicosis issue. In announcing the Senate hearing in Las Vegas, Reid said DOE "sent workers into that mountain knowing full well of the presence of silica and knowing full well that exposure to silica can cause death." He added that DOE knew the exposure was "100% preventable, but did nothing that would have protected these workers. At best, DOE's actions are negligent and at worst criminal, and I intend to use this hearing to get to the bottom of this." Reid is particularly passionate about the issue because, according to his staff, his father was a miner who suffered from silicosis.

At one point during the hearing, Reid interrupted Runkle and said, "DOE ignored the threat. What has taken place here is just absolutely wrong."

Runkle later said project administrators were trying to "balance operations and the safety requirements at the time. There were safety processes in place and they were taken into
account."

Reid has promised the former workers that his office will closely monitor the safety and screening programs at the mountain. Meanwhile, a DOE staff member said, a departmental investigation is under way into allegations that air monitoring numbers were altered by project managers in the mid−1990s to cover up the extent of the dust problem.