Yucca Mountain Data under Fire

E-mails and other documents released by a House subcommittee last week show that government scientists fabricated data needed to support construction of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada.

At a House hearing, three representatives from Nevada grilled Department of Energy officials and told them to stop site work until an independent investigation into the depth of the duplicity is conducted. DOE officials, however, said they were doing their own investigations, and so far, they believe no evidence demonstrates that the underlying science for the project has been compromised.

The revelations, first made public by DOE in mid-March, have led to ongoing criminal investigations by the Offices of Inspector General for the Interior and Energy Departments and the FBI. At a minimum, the investigations will delay DOE's press to file a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the repository.

Although only partial and redacted e-mails and other documents have been made public, they show that scientists admitted to one another that they were keeping separate records--one set for quality assurance inspections and another, accurate, set. They also describe compromises needed to overcome difficulties in meeting schedules on the huge project. The messages were exchanged in the late 1990s and focused on science and models for water incursion through the mountain and climate projections for future centuries--contentious issues that are critical to the project's success.

This latest problem joins others, such as a court decision last summer throwing out the repository's radiation standard, which determines how much radioactivity may be released to the environment over the millenia the waste is radioactive.