Yucca project auditor ignored: 2002 complaints went nowhere

[NVMojo]

This is a typical Bushworld problem ...

September 18, 2006

Three years before e-mails revealed that federal geologists discussed falsifying documents at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, a worker alerted the Department of Energy inspector general's office to what she described as similar quality assurance problems stemming from corruption in management.

The bulk of the complaint was sent in early 2002 in five Federal Express mailings from Kristi Hodges, a lead auditor for the project's quality assurance contractor. She lodged her initial complaint to the inspector general's hot line in writing on Oct. 15, 2001.

She wrote hundreds of pages in those six mailings about certification documents that were falsified and suppressed and about supervisors who were wrongfully fired or transferred. But the IG's office never publicly acknowledged the matter until the agency responded last month to a Freedom of Information Act appeal by the Review-Journal.

An official said the inspector general's office decided not to investigate the complaint and instead referred it to the agency that was the subject of the complaint.

After reviewing the 146-page response, Hodges said the handling of her complaint is akin to "sending the fox to investigate the hen house."

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Sep-18-Mon-2006/news/9686762.html

[hunter]

1. The very premise of Yucca Mountain is flawed.

"Let's dig a big hole and bury it" is a very primitive sort of solution.

At this point it's all about politics and the only real question is "Who gets the money?"