Allen Benson Quotes (16 Quotes)

In terms of these e-mail issues, a couple of people were involved in venting, if you will, and my comments to the press at the time when all this came out, were this was water cooler chatter,

Yucca Mountain was recommended by the U.S. Geological Survey because of the attributes the site possesses including a stable geology, a deep water table, no one lives there, it's a desert environment and ... it's remote,

We did intensely study this, and when you stand on Yucca Mountain the cinder cones are moving away. The youngest one is 80,000 years old so if any new ones develop they're moving south and away,

This is the most overseen project in the history of the government. We're trying to make the organization better fit the mission to develop a license application and submit it to the NRC for a permanent deep geological repository at Yucca Mountain.

The scrap alone is probably worth that.

We found these issues and we made them public, so I don't know what kind of cover-up others are talking about, ... And in a Congressional hearing the principal architect of the e-mails testified under oath that he falsified no information (about the mountain or its safety).

And we did look at it, ... We studied it, characterized it and in February of 2002 the (DOE) secretary recommended it to the president who recommended it to Congress.

We're not sure we need the full 20 years. All we're getting out of it is the right of way to be able to build the rail line.

Everything would be convoyed safely, ... We've been moving this kind of material around country for a very long time, and we're confident in our ability to safely transport this material.

We have a letter from the director of the U. S. Geological Survey to the Energy Department supporting the site recommendation. It supports going ahead.

All facilities will be built to withstand a 6.5 level earthquake at Yucca Mountain, and the University of Nevada will monitor seismic activity,

Yucca Mountain was formed 10 to 15 million years ago, and it's not a volcano it's the result of volcanoes,

We're in the process of putting a new organization in place, which is going to take a few weeks. There will be significant organizational changes.

Even though you get five to six inches of rain each year and we're in a desert environment, some amount of moisture will penetrate the mountain and over the millennia we might want to make sure we'll use a drip shield,

Clearly that's going to be a major part of the program. It's going to be a flatter organization. You go to a more direct relationship with the management. ... We're also going to eliminate the distinction between East and West.

This is a tough response, when you tell a contractor they no longer have the authority to submit work they are contractually required to submit because they are not following procedure.