Lawmakers Investigate Fraud Allegations at Yucca Mountain
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by Erica WernerAssociated Press April 6, 2005
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WASHINGTON — The planned
nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada won't be built unless
the Energy Department is confident of the supporting science after
investigating e-mails that showed workers discussing fabricating
data, an official said Tuesday.
Under angry questioning from
Nevada lawmakers, deputy director Theodore Garrish said the
department was preparing to apply for a license to run the dump, but
"we have not made a final decision yet as to when or whether to file
those documents, and some of that will be based on this
investigation."
"I can assure you we will not go forward
unless we can have the feeling ourselves first that this repository
will be safe," said Garrish.
Reassurances from Garrish and
Charles Groat, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, didn't
satisfy the Nevadans. They have seized on the e-mails, written by
USGS employees, as the latest reason to kill the dump planned for 90
miles north of Las Vegas. Officials from Gov. Kenny Guinn on down
expressed outrage Tuesday during a House Government Reform
subcommittee hearing.
"The fact that data may have been
intentionally fabricated in service of shoring up predetermined and
politically driven conclusions calls into question the very
legitimacy of this entire program," Guinn said.
The Energy
Department disclosed March 16 that e-mails written between 1998 and
2000, principally by two USGS scientists, suggested the workers
might have falsified documents. Porter's committee has released
redacted versions of dozens of the e-mails that show workers
discussing concocting facts and keeping two sets of figures, one for
themselves and one to show quality assurance officers.
In
one e-mail a USGS scientist wrote: "I don't have a clue when these
programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names. ...
This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I
will be happy to make up more stuff."
The workers were
studying how water moved through the desert site where the
government wants to store 77,000 tons of commercial and defense
nuclear waste from the nation's power plants and other sources for
at least 10,000 years. The USGS validated Energy Department
conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation
would be less likely to escape.
In written testimony,
Garrish downplayed the significance of the e-mails. "This appears to
be a lapse in quality assurance protocol and, at this time, we have
no evidence that the underlying science was affected," his written
testimony said.
He seemed to soften his position when he
addressed the subcommittee, suggesting more study was needed.
"The impact of this issue is yet to be determined, and yes,
we are concerned about the integrity of the data, and what was done
was inexcusable," Garrish said.
The inspectors general of
the Energy and Interior departments are conducting criminal
investigations with help from the FBI, and the Energy Department is
studying the impact on the scientific underpinnings of the planned
waste dump site.
But Nevada lawmakers called Tuesday for
additional reviews. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who chaired Tuesday's
hearing, said he wanted an independent commission similar to the
presidential commission that investigated the 1979 accident at
Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island.
Porter also said he was
summoning the two main USGS workers who wrote the e-mails to testify
at a hearing next week. Their identities have not been released.
Groat said Tuesday they are no longer on the Yucca project but are
still employed by USGS.
John Mitchell Jr., president and
general manager of Bechtel SAIC, the Energy Department's managing
contractor on the Yucca project, also testified Tuesday. He said the
e-mails were originally discovered by Bechtel workers in early
December and were discussed by high-ranking company officials, but
weren't turned over to the Energy Department until March.
Porter was the only member of the House Government Reform
federal work force and agency organization subcommittee to attend
Tuesday's panel. He invited Nevada's other two House members,
Republican Jim Gibbons and Democrat Shelley Berkley, to join him in
questioning witnesses. That turned the three-hour hearing into a
face-off between Nevadans adamantly opposed to Yucca and government
officials committed to it, and there was little budging on either
side.
A planned completion date of 2010 for the Yucca
project was recently abandoned by Energy Department officials. A new
date has not yet been set.
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Source: Associated Press
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