Panel to probe alleged false documents on Yucca Mountain project

A House Government Reform subcommittee next Tuesday will examine whether alleged falsified government research documents compromised scientific justification for storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

House Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Jon Porter, R-Nev., has called officials from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Energy and Interior departments, and other federal and Nevada officials to testify about possible fabricated documentation.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also has scheduled a hearing next Thursday into the status of the long-delayed Yucca Mountain repository. Witnesses have not been set, a committee spokesman said, noting, "It's a good hot topic." Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici, R- N.M., has supported placing the nuclear repository in Nevada.

At issue is a March 16 announcement by Energy Secretary Sam Bodman that his department "has learned that certain employees of the U.S. Geological Survey at the Department of the Interior working on the Yucca Mountain project may have falsified documentation of their work." Investigations are under way into e-mails between May 1998 and March 2000 in which a USGS employee indicated he had fabricated information, Bodman said.

Porter, an opponent of storing nuclear waste in his state, said alleged false documents deal with a water infiltration study that "is very important because water movement is critical in determining the integrity of the casks that will hold the nuclear waste and the possible spread of radiation from the repository."

He said the aim of the hearing is to determine if "the allegations erode the scientific basis for the proposed project." Because of legal disputes and other delays, the project has been on hold since President Bush signed legislation in 2002 authorizing a single storage facility at Yucca Mountain. Spent nuclear fuel and waste from nuclear facilities are now stored more than 100 sites around the country.