Nuclear Reaction

Falsified data fuels opposition to proposed Yucca Mountain dump site.

Four months after the revelation that scientific documentation for the nation's first nuclear waste dump may have been faked, Judy Treichel and Steve Frishman figured they would be dancing on the grave of the Yucca Mountain Project. Instead, the two Nevada activists still are trying to bury the proposal.

Summertime is scramble time. There are public hearings to attend, lawsuits to press, dollars to raise and federal bureaucracies to fight as the Energy Department continues its pursuit of a license to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive materials beneath the 1,200-foot-high ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "The e-mails should have put this thing down," says Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a nonprofit organization that has waged an 18-year battle against the project.

The e-mails of which she speaks were written between 1998 and 2000. The messages appear to indicate that one or more U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists fabricated quality assurances on computer models used to determine how much water could seep through rock in Yucca Mountain, corrode the underground storage containers and carry off dangerous radioactive particles.

"I've made up the dates and names," one worker confesses in a March 30, 2000, message that continues, "If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff." It's found in a 90-page collection of heavily redacted e-mails the Energy and Interior departments released to Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., in March. A few mention "fudge factors" or end with "destroy this message."

Still other messages suggest there was a culture of intimidation in which scientists doing the environmental analysis were being pressured to provide the right answer and not find the scientific truth. The mere hint of impropriety is enough to convince Frishman, a geologist and state-paid consultant, that the opposition has been right all along about the likelihood of contamination reaching Nevada's water table. Yucca Mountain was chosen because it is supposed to be able to isolate highly radioactive waste for at least 10,000 years, but opponents argue the protection might not last even a few hundred. "If you have workers falsifying any part of their work or ignoring results management doesn't want to have, then this goes right to the heart of the safety question," Frishman says.

It's not the first time quality assurance at Yucca Mountain has gotten a bad rap. The Government Accountability Office last year detailed persistent problems that could delay licensing and operation.

The e-mails came to light during a document review the Energy Department must complete to get the license. The contractor, Bechtel SAIC Co., says it discovered them in December but didn't notify the department until March. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told the public on March 16. "This behavior indicated in the e-mails is completely unacceptable," Bodman said, promising to investigate the data and correct any deficiencies. His disclosure prompted criminal probes by the Energy and Interior departments' inspectors general and the FBI.

The Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, which Porter chairs, was inquiring, too. "I want to make sure there hasn't been undue pressure by DOE or USGS officials to get the job done at any cost," Porter told Government Executive. "We also want to find out if this is a culture that spreads [beyond] the Yucca Mountain Project . . . because DOE has control over nuclear power plants and homeland security." He had subpoenaed the principal author of the e-mails to testify at a hearing June 29.

USGS hydrologist Joseph Hevesi denied falsifying anything. Instead, he said, he was venting frustration over quality assurance procedures that were being developed at the same time crucial research was being done. Hevesi said that he, too, is "somewhat horrified" when he reads the messages now, but insisted the science is sound. "I have completely rethought how I use the whole e-mail system and how I communicate," he said.

The scandal might have put the site's future in serious doubt, but the government is resolved to see it through. Energy has concluded that the water flow studies are sound, but Yucca Mountain Deputy Director W. John Arthur told Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that the information will be "replaced, redone or remediated" for the application.

The application was to have been submitted last December. Preparations for a 2010 opening have been set back at least two years by problems, including the documentation flap, budget cuts and a federal court ruling against an insufficient Environmental Protection Agency radiation standard last year. Also, in January, Energy disclosed that workers who drilled tunnels in the mountain might have been exposed to toxic silica dust.

Some say the e-mail revelations will make it more difficult for the Energy Department to meet at least one requirement-the test of character and fitness to be a licensee. Meanwhile, pro-Yucca forces are grouping for a campaign in more than 40 states where consumers are paying to send spent fuel to the mountain, and Nevada is spending roughly $1.5 million a year trying to stave off the pending deliveries.

In June, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $577 million for the project, $74 million less than the administration's request for 2006. Unlike an earlier House bill, it didn't include money for a site to store waste temporarily while Yucca's problems are being solved. The House bill fully funded Yucca with $651 million and added $10 million for an interim dump.