Yucca Mountain Workers in Danger - Cancer Causing Dust

http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0412-08.htm

WASHINGTON - April 12 - Citing safety concerns, Gene Griego, a technician who worked at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository site in the mid-1990s, has filed a class-action lawsuit against the site's developers. Among the counts, the suit charges Yucca developers with wanton misconduct, gross negligence, and fraudulent concealment. Plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief to ensure that all workers in and visitors to the tunnels are provided with adequate personal protection, and a court order for the developers to install, operate, and maintain efficient dust removal systems to reduce the toxic dust levels to recognized acceptable minimum levels.

Griego charges that the developers knowingly exposed Yucca Mountain workers and visitors to highly carcinogenic hazards without providing them with proper protection. Though contractors knew the levels of toxic dust exceeded regulatory limits, they are accused of deliberately doctoring field readings of particulate levels in the Yucca tunnels to avoid the added costs, schedule impacts, and inconvenience of providing adequate respiratory protection and protective clothing. Worksite workers and visitors may have exposed family members and others to the poisonous dust by carrying it on their clothing from the worksite into their homes. The dust can lead to incurable silicosis, lung danger, autoimmune disorders, increased risk of tuberculosis, and chronic renal disease among other problems.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) contractors have had access to Yucca Mountain's volcanic rock that is laced with silica, erionite, and mordenite -- all minerals that are highly carcinogenic when airborne. This danger is only heightened by the contractors' decision to dry drill instead of using water or other precautions to minimize dust.

"The dust at the Yucca Mountain Project is so toxic that it amounts to a deadly time bomb; exposure increases the risk of latent and potentially fatal diseases that will manifest in up to 20 years or more after inhalation," stated Mark Hutton a Nevada attorney involved with the case.
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let's say that again in caps: "THE DUST AT THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT IS SO TOXIC THAT IT AMOUNTS TO A DEADLY TIME BOMB"

and the workers are taking it home to their families the same as our troops are bringing home DU in their bodies and passing it on.

Ask the mods to lock this one.