Prosecution possible in Yucca probe

Jeff German and Mary Manning

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

A federal probe of the Department of Energy's bias against Nevada in the selection of a high-level nuclear waste dump could wind up in the hands of the Justice Department.

"I think it could very well go to the Justice Department for criminal violations," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Sun this morning.

"The contractor for the DOE was paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the DOE to do a fair and objective study of Yucca Mountain, and it didn't do it."

Reid's comments followed a statement issued Tuesday by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, saying he has asked the DOE's inspector general to investigate the "apparent bias" of the contractor, TRW Inc.

"To assure the public that the department's consideration of Yucca is based on sound science, I am asking the inspector general to determine to what extent, if any, the apparent bias of the subcontractor may have compromised the integrity of reports or documents related to the Yucca Mountain project," Richardson said.

"The citizens of Nevada must be assured that science will drive the department's decision on the suitability of Yucca Mountain and not on any contractor bias. My decision today is aimed at providing the citizens of Nevada with exactly that assurance."

Reid said he was pleased with Richardson's actions, which came on the heels of the senator's own call for an inspector general's investigation on Friday.

"The secretary has always supported our stand on nuclear waste," said Reid, who met last Thursday on Capitol Hill with Richardson, a good friend. "He feels that if there's any validity to this he wants no part of it."

In his statement, Richardson said he has halted the release of the 1,500-page Site Recommendation Consideration Report (SRCR) on Yucca Mountain, which was to be given to Congress as early as this month, until the inspector general's inquiry is completed.

Reid said he wasn't concerned that a delay in the release of the report would push back the DOE's timetable for making a formal recommendation this summer.

"I'm not worried about that," Reid said. "This is the right thing to do. It has everything to do with making sure the process is fair."

In a statement he released Tuesday, Reid added: "No single issue will have greater impact on the health and safety of Nevadans than nuclear waste storage, and there must be a complete investigation into the integrity of studies used to evaluate the safety of Yucca Mountain.

"Secretary Richardson has now pledged that the DOE will not issue a recommendation on Yucca Mountain until an investigation is complete, and I will be watching every single step of the way to make sure there is ample time to guarantee an independent, objective assessment."

Reid's call for an inspector general's probe followed a Sun report disclosing DOE documents that suggest the federal agency was collaborating with the nuclear industry to recommend Yucca Mountain, even though a study of the Nevada site has not been completed.

The senator wrote a letter to the inspector general asking him to investigate whether federal laws were violated by those documents pushing Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the site for burying 77,000 tons of dangerous radioactive materials.

The documents included a 60-page draft overview of the SRCR that suggests Yucca Mountain is a safe site for a repository and a two-page reviewer's note that describes the overview as being designed to help DOE officials sell the Nevada site to Congress.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, members of the Nevada Legislature and the state's congressional delegation also have voiced outrage over the internal DOE documents.

Guinn said last week he would call a "summit" of top elected leaders to come up with a strategy to counter the DOE's bias against Nevada in the site-selection process.

The documents disclosed by the Sun "clearly demonstrate a bias in favor of Yucca Mountain, and it serves as further fodder for those who believe as I do, that the Department of Energy has abandoned its responsibility to remain independent throughout this process," Reid said.

The reviewer's note, Reid said, "appears to indicate that the DOE and those working on Yucca Mountain have already decided that the site is safe even though scientific tests have yet to be completed and no official recommendation on its suitability has been made."