Yucca Probe Focuses on Possibly Faked Data

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040205Y.shtml

 

Yucca Probe Focuses on Possibly Faked Data

The Associated Press

 

Friday 01 April 2005

 

E-mails suggest efforts aimed at clinching nuclear waste project.

 

Washington - E-mails by several government scientists on the Yucca

Mountain nuclear waste dump project suggest workers were planning to

fabricate records and manipulate results to ensure outcomes that would

help the project move forward.

 

" I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've

made up the dates and names, " wrote a US Geological Survey employee in

one e-mail released Friday by a congressional committee investigating

suspected document falsification on the project.

 

" This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I

will be happy to make up more stuff. "

 

In another message the same employee wrote to a colleague: " In the

end I keep track of 2 sets of files, the ones that will keep QA happy

and the ones that were actually used. " QA apparently refers to

" quality assurance. "

 

The e-mails were in a batch of correspondence released in advance

of next week's hearing by the House Government Reform Subcommittee on

the Federal Work Force and Agency Organization, chaired by Rep. Jon

Porter, R-Nev.

 

The Energy and Interior departments revealed the existence of the

e-mails March 16, and inspectors general of both departments are

investigating. The FBI also is conducting a probe, according to a

subcommittee staffer.

 

10,000-Year Burial

 

Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in 2002, is planned as the

nation's underground repository for 77,000 tons of defense waste and

used reactor fuel from commercial power plants. The material is

supposed to be buried for at least 10,000 years beneath the Nevada

desert, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

 

Many Nevadans and some environmentalists say the waste can never

be safely stored and the plan puts local residents at risk. There also

are concerns among others outside the state that hauling the waste to

Nevada puts at risk those along the routes.

 

But the Bush administration, the energy industry and others say a

central storage site is needed, and would provide better security for

tens of thousands of tons of commercial and defense waste now housed

at sites in 39 states.

 

The e-mails were written from 1998 to 2000 and circulated among a

team of USGS scientists studying how water moves through the planned

dump site, a key issue in determining whether and how much radiation

could escape.

 

Scientists at the US Geological Survey validated Energy Department

conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would

be less likely to escape.

 

Science by Peer Pressure

 

Many of the dozens of pages of e-mails released appear to involve

not initial scientific experiments, but rather attempts to provide

documentation of work done in the past.

 

The Energy Department is working to submit an application to the

Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to run the dump, and must

turn over extensive documentation.

 

The e-mails provide a window into the environment surrounding the

project, first considered over 20 years ago. Names and some proper

nouns were blacked out by congressional staffers before they were

released.

 

" Science by peer pressure is dangerous but sometime (sic) it is

necessary, " says one message, by a second scientist at the geological

survey.

 

The emergence of the e-mails was the latest setback for Yucca

Mountain, which has also suffered money shortfalls and an appeals

court decision last summer that is forcing a rewrite of radiation

exposure limits for the site. The Energy Department recently abandoned

a planned 2010 completion date, and department officials have not

given a new date.

 

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