Editorial: More bad news for Energy Department

Friday, Jan. 25, 2002 | 4:38 a.m.

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board issued a report last week that said the scientific work at the Yucca Mountain project has been "weak to moderate." Not exactly the ringing endorsement you'd expect for a project that for the next 10,000 years is supposed to safely contain 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The characterization is even more damning because it comes from an independent panel of scientists charged by Congress to assess the Department of Energy's suitability study of Yucca Mountain.

The board did say that "no individual technical or scientific factor" has been found that would automatically eliminate Yucca Mountain from consideration. But that is faint praise when considering that the Department of Energy's investigation has overlooked many of the warning signs that Yucca Mountain's geology can't safely contain the nuclear waste. The board noted that there were "gaps in data and basic understanding" in the Department of Energy's work, a situation that has caused "important uncertainties in the concepts and assumptions in which the DOE's performance estimates are now based."

Yucca Mountain isn't a garden-variety public works project -- and the federal government should start recognizing that fact. A recent General Accounting Office report said that the Bush administration should postpone a decision on Yucca Mountain, noting that there were 293 technical and scientific questions still unanswered. President Bush should reject Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation that a repository be built at Yucca Mountain. It makes no sense to throw more money at Yucca Mountain, a project that has been a failure from its inception.