Yucca nuclear dump site is laying off employees due to funding cuts

LAS VEGAS — The Energy Department is cutting operations and the chief contractor is laying off its staff at the desert site where the government plans to build a national nuclear waste repository, officials said this week.

"The tunnel is closed," Yucca Mountain project and Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said Tuesday, attributing the moves to cuts in congressional funding for the repository, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Entry to the site's underground tunnel will be restricted to a skeleton staff of technicians and maintenance workers, Benson said.

Officials with Bechtel SAIC Co., the main project contractor, said 63 contractors had lost their jobs, leaving about 15 "caretaking" employees, while project planners complete a shift from exploring and site evaluation to preparing an application for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to operate the repository.

"We're not locking the gate and walking away," said Jason Bohne, spokesman for Bechtel SAIC in Las Vegas. "We're putting it on standby status. We got the data we need."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who is a staunch opponent of the Yucca project and orchestrated the cut in funding, said he was sorry for the contractors losing their jobs but won't be happy until the Yucca budget is cut to zero.

Edward F. "Ward" Sproat, the Energy Department official in charge of the Yucca project, has vowed to submit an application to the NRC by June 30. He has projected 2017 as the earliest the dump could open, with a price tag now topping $77 billion.

The project has seen a series of setbacks since Congress in 2002 approved entombing as much as 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive military, industrial and commercial waste in tunnels 1,000 feet below the ancient volcanic ridge.

Quality assurance questions, opposition from Nevada lawmakers, court fights and a judicial order for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to revise project radiation safety standards have contributed to delays.