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Yucca's 625 workers face uncertain futures
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Apr. 10, 2012 | 10:51 a.m.
Chains holding the white Department of Energy flag creaked against the flagpole in the gentle breeze and sent an eerie sound across the half-filled parking lot at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project Tuesday.
The asphalt lot had more empty spaces than employees' cars. It was a sign that the once-bustling, multibillion-dollar effort to study and build a repository for the nation's most deadly nuclear waste was coming to a halt.
Employees with long faces and quick words of "no comment" entered the building as they returned from the noon hour not sure what their next jobs will be.
For the first time in the 23-year history of the project, they had been told by DOE officials in Washington, D.C., to close down the building on Hillshire Drive and prepare for funding to terminate in September.
"Everybody is really saddened and depressed," said Tracie, a contract worker for the project who would only give her first name after a security guard in uniform interrupted her conversation.
"They're telling us it's done. The budget is zero. I think it's very sad. It's a shame," she said.
Monday afternoon, shortly after Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters the effort to license the repository was suspended and the application before nuclear regulators would be withdrawn in 30 days, the 625 federal and contract workers in Las Vegas and at the Forrestal Building on Independence Avenue in the nation's capital were given the news they had dreaded.
Dave Zabransky, acting principal deputy director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, had told them in a video conference that the DOE was closing down the program. Internal working groups would be formed to handle the task of trying to place workers in other government projects.
There were other matters to resolve, including what will be done with the mock, zirconium nuclear fuel assembly that stands like a monolith in the lobby of the two-story building. The assembly of metal tubes like the ones loaded with used, radioactive hot fuel pellets that sit in water pools at reactors sites and in dry casks above ground would probably wind up in the Atomic Testing Museum on East Flamingo Road, one DOE official said.
Even the words "Yucca Mountain Project" had been chiseled away a few months ago from the concrete slab at the entrance to the parking lot.
The flat-topped volcanic rock ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where government scientists and engineers had planned to entomb 77,000 tons of highly radioactive used fuel mostly from U.S. power reactors, was no longer the disposal option under the Obama administration even though Congress had approved the site in 2002.
Over the years, project officials had seen federal and contractor employee numbers climb to 2,750 in 2005, the peak year for the nuclear waste program.
Budget cutbacks that paralleled and the nation's economic downturn reduced the numbers to 1,400 in March, dipping to 800 in April and decreasing to 625, the current number.
"People are routinely leaving but nobody is being hired," one project official said.
After Monday's announcement, a DOE employee who described himself as a project manager, said, "From a personal standpoint, I believe our government is near-sighted. We've got $13 billion invested and they walk away from it. That's not a good business decision," he said.
Another DOE employee, who would not give his name, handed out a statement that criticized Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., for demonstrating "once again ... how out of touch (he) is with the Nevada state needs and citizens' desire for jobs."
"The focus must be on jobs, and his opposition will cost the state of Nevada 40,000-plus jobs over the next 50-plus years. ... This is a political decision and not based on science."
Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
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To BR63:
Certainly Yucca Mountain is only the right thing to do if it is done right. Of course I agree with that. And I also agree with the possibility that the NRC could have found the license application wrong, and rejected it. But on the other hand, they could also have accepted it. I guess we may never know now.
There are actually three questions in play here, that we need to keep separate:
1. IS the license application fatally flawed?
2. If so, HOW is it flawed?
3. If so, WHY is it flawed?
All I am suggesting is that it isn't possible to meaningfully speculate on the competence or moral intentions of the people who submitted the license application, which is question 3, until questions 1 and 2 have been answered.
As far as Senator Reid is concerned, on January 23rd, this newspaper published a story called "Jobs report only part of story," by Jennifer Robison. As I recall, that story suggested that the real unemployment rate in Nevada may be as high as 25%. If true, this is unambiguously an unemployment rate consistent with the Great Depression.
I only question why Senator Reid and his colleagues are spending so much time trying to shut down Yucca Mountain, let alone without proposing a meaningful alternative, when his constituents could plausibly be said to be enduring Great Depression-like economic conditions. For the sake of all those people who have lost or are losing their jobs, that is a fair question.
The DOE needs to run an add in the NYT and WSJ-Wanted Community in dry arid region with reasonable earthquake stability, hard rock geology to take $10 to $20 billion dollar facility to employ up to 10,000 people for permanent nuclear waste storage. Let's see if there are any takers in this economy. You need to put it into perspective of what you folks in Nevada Just lost. Nevada meets the criterion and using JUNK science by people with NO knowlege, but good at the PEN shut this whole site down. WE need names who funded this fight-the RICH widows (and others who inherited this money) who pour money into causes and JUNK science.
Green technology is needed and the biggest card the US has in our hand was shelved by both the Nevada Newspapers and your senator. So much for green technology, what do we do install a wind turbine on our car. Battery or hydrogen technology will never work without nuclear reactors. OH well, please vote the sucker out for the rest of us.
To BR63:
Well done - I like the way you put it. The purpose of this newspaper article and thread is to look at the human side of the current effort to close the Yucca Mountain Project. But the longer term issue is how to deal responsibly with nuclear waste.
It is obvious that you feel deeply that Yucca Mountain is not a responsible way to deal with nuclear waste, and I respect that. But I have known a whole lot of people who believed just as strongly that it is the responsible thing to do. And I respect their stance as much as I respect yours.
Frankly, the Yucca Mountain Project workers I know (and knew) are (and were) just as honest and honorable as you, and trying to responsibly manage nuclear waste in what they sincerely believed was the right way. Just like you. Talk of incompetent, amoral managers trying to sell the public a bill of goods, or gullible workers who fell for it, is not productive.
At this point, the most productive thing to do is probably to wait for the panel to finish its work. If they have a better idea, I'm all ears.
In the meantime, though, I have to say there's been a little too much gloating for my taste, in the news coverage of these events. The people who seem to be about to lose their jobs in the midst of the worst recession in a generation have a right to be heard. And if they choose to express their anger and fear and grief by criticizing the politician who claims the most responsibility, so be it.
To BR63:
These are interesting points, and should indeed be carefully considered and debated in the appropriate forum. Unfortunately, however, recent events regarding the license application make it look like this may never happen. For myself, I will defer debating these points until that forum is announced, if it ever is.
I think that for now, the focus of this discussion should be on the human side of this issue. After all, that is what this article was supposedly about.
And the human suffering caused by simply ignoring the nuclear waste problem, by shutting down Yucca Mountain without any viable alternative, may be far worse than just a few lost jobs. Don't forget the "ripple effect."
The danger to the global climate from burning too much fossil fuel has been in the media a lot, of course, but the danger to our national economy from buying too much foreign oil has not been discussed anywhere near enough. Like it or not, nuclear energy is the most effective currently available alternative to fossil fuels. The future of nuclear energy depends on solving the nuclear waste problem. And, also like it or not, Yucca Mountain is the only currently available solution to nuclear waste.
In my opinion, the burden of finding a viable alternative to Yucca Mountain should be on those who want to shut it down. Any national or even global suffering potentially caused by not finding an alternative would therefore be their responsibility.
I'm still waiting to hear any meaningful alternative from Senator Reid.
To BR63:
These are interesting points, and should indeed be carefully considered and debated in the appropriate forum. Unfortunately, however, recent events regarding the license application make it look like this may never happen. For myself, I will defer debating these points until that forum is announced, if it ever is.
I think that for now, the focus of this discussion should be on the human side of this issue. After all, that is what this article was supposedly about.
And the human suffering caused by simply ignoring the nuclear waste problem, by shutting down Yucca Mountain without any viable alternative, may be far worse than just a few lost jobs. Don't forget the "ripple effect."
The danger to the global climate from burning too much fossil fuel has been in the media a lot, of course, but the danger to our national economy from buying too much foreign oil has not been discussed anywhere near enough. Like it or not, nuclear energy is the most effective currently available alternative to fossil fuels. The future of nuclear energy depends on solving the nuclear waste problem. And, also like it or not, Yucca Mountain is the only currently available solution to nuclear waste.
In my opinion, the burden of finding a viable alternative to Yucca Mountain should be on those who want to shut it down. Any national or even global suffering potentially caused by not finding an alternative would therefore be their responsibility.
I'm still waiting to hear any meaningful alternative from Senator Reid.
I can't add anything to the eloquent testimonials already posted, on the human suffering caused by Senator Reid's use of Yucca Mountain as a political football to further his own personal career. But I do have two questions.
1. Far and away the most pressing issue affecting Las Vegas' long term survival is water. I know of nothing that Senator Reid has done on that issue. Has he done anything? He seems to have ignored it in favor of crusading against Yucca Mountain.
2. The very best thing that could be done for the Vegas economy right away would be to build a high-speed rail line between Vegas and LA. Has Senator Reid done anything about that, or was he too busy crusading against Yucca Mountain? Did Vegas get any of the stimulus money recently announced for rail systems, or did Senator Reid trade it all away for Yucca Mountain?
If those 625 people losing their jobs is no big deal, then I'm sure Senator Reid won't mind losing his in November, either.
For the sake of honesty, I will disclose that I worked on Yucca Mountain for 16 years, before being laid off myself two years ago thanks to Senator Reid. These evidently soon to be displaced workers are good people, and my friends. Many of them have lived in Nevada for decades. Senator Reid does not seem to understand or care what he has put them through.
You are right, Abe. It's all just so very, very sad.