Yucca
Obama still trying to get green team in place
President Barack Obama is still trying to get his second-term cabinet nominees in place. A number of those still to be confirmed focus on the environment, including Energy Secretary nominee Ernest Moniz and EPA administrator nominee Gina McCarthy. Moniz and McCarthy both recently had confirmation hearings.
Yucca Woes
Storing nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has been a long and bitter debate between the federal government and the local residents. Now there are reports that key geological research had been falsified; data that was to determine the safety of the site. Host Steve Curwood talks with Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington […]
DOE Accountability
Former Department of Energy advisor Bob Alvarez worked at DOE when workers were exposed to silica at Yucca Mountain. Alvarez talks with host Steve Curwood about why DOE’s contracting system is outdated, and how its worker safety practices would not be tolerated in the private sector, or even other sectors of government.
Health Hazards at Yucca Mountain
Workers building the country’s proposed nuclear waste storage site say Yucca Mountain is already a danger even before any radioactive waste arrives. The workers say they were exposed to hazardous silica dust during years of tunnel digging. Jeff Young’s investigation finds evidence that energy officials took little action although they knew the dust exposures were […]
Yucca Mountain
The Department of Energy recently announced it will push ahead with plans to build a high level nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. State officials and environmental groups oppose the plan. But as Jon Christensen reports, many residents who live closest to Yucca Mountain have grown fatalistic about living in a nuclear environment.