GAO: Yucca Mountain quality control still suffers

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, April 30, 2004 | 10:54 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The General Accounting Office stands by it's initial assessment that problems still plague the Energy Department's quality control program for the Yucca Mountain project and could cause delay.

In the final version of the latest GAO report on the department's nuclear waste storage project, released today, federal investigators maintain the department "is not yet in a position to demonstrate to NRC that its quality assurance program can ensure the safe construction and long term operation of the repository."

The Energy Department plans to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December to build the federal storage site for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The commission will use scientific information, which includes tracing data back to its sources, to evaluate whether the site can operate within federal radiation limits. The quality assurance program leaves a document trail for the commission to follow so it can see how the department reached its conclusions.

Margaret Chu, head of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told the GAO in an April 19 letter that there were "major deficiencies" in the draft of the report, including a lack of acknowledgement for improvements already made to the program and mischaracterizations of conclusions drawn in other reports and audit review by the investigators for the final report.

But the GAO said Chu was wrong. The report considered the improvements found through its own investigations and other reviews, but each still showed problems, the GAO concluded.

"Despite the many actions taken to improve the quality assurance program, the management weaknesses and quality problems with data, models, and software have continued, indicating that the corrective actions have not been fully effective," according to the final report.

A review of three more documents did not change the GAO's conclusion, according to the report.

William Travers, the NRC's executive director for operations, agreed with the report, writing that "the Department of Energy should continue to improve" its quality control program, but wanted the department to be able to choose its own approaches.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said; "This report confirms the Department of Energy is wasting billions of dollars, and is putting Nevadan's health and safety at risk, because of substandard science and severe mismanagement on the Yucca Mountain project. The report also clearly shows that the Department of Energy is more concerned with meeting deadlines than ensuring safety. It's yet another reason why I will continue to oppose the Yucca Mountain project."